the user meant mestizo I guess hispanic as anglophoenes can be of any race.
the source says hispanic, does not clarify on race. Muntuwandi 11:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
The intro says it all:
"Racial distinctions are generally made on the basis of skin color, facial features, inferred ancestry, national origin and self-identification. Ongoing debate exists over the merit of the concept of 'race', especially from the perspective of genetics" Lukas19 17:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
regarding Lukas19's edits of 20:05 quoting the Risch article, I did a search of the Risch article using the Adobe acrobat reader's search engine and did not find the term "racial level". This leads me to believe that the quote cited does not exist in the article.
regarding his edits in the section titled "Distribution of genetic variation within/between populations", the version by Wobble is more NPOV.
regarding his edits on Lewontin's fallacy, I reviewed them and found that they did have merit, however not enough as to completely replace Wobble's version. So, I went through both versions and tried to make a compromise between the two.- Psychohistorian 20:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
“ | ..............The existence of such intermediate groups
should not, however, overshadow the fact that the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level. Most recently, Wilson et al. [2] studied 354 individuals from 8 populations deriving from Africa (Bantus, Afro-Caribbeans and Ethiopians), Europe/Mideast (Norwegians, Ashkenazi Jews and Armenians), Asia (Chinese) and Pacific Islands (Papua New Guineans). Their study was based on cluster analysis using 39 microsatellite loci. Consistent with previ- ous studies, they obtained evidence of four clusters repre- senting the major continental (racial) divisions described above as African, Caucasian, Asian, and Pacific Islander. The.......... |
” |
First, there are the usual silly mistakes, similar to the inability to use Acrobat search engine.
"A study called Clines, Clusters, and the Effect of Study Design on the Inference of Human Population Structure and done by Neil Risch, Esteban Burchard, Elad Ziv and Hua Tang, two of them from Stanford University:"
No, that study was done by: Noah A. Rosenberg1*, Saurabh Mahajan2, Sohini Ramachandran3, Chengfeng Zhao4, Jonathan K. Pritchard5, Marcus W. Feldman3
Second, if humans show big DNA differences, it is important and relavant to the article. Because BBC source explicitly says:
"It would seem the assumption that the DNA of any two humans is 99.9% similar in content and identity no longer holds."
Third "size of variation" repeats "Genetic variation at the individual level" WITHOUT counter arguments. Again, blatant bias mixed with limited understandings.
Fourth "But is the variation by geographic origin distinct enough to count as race" includes JUST anti-race arguments. As if the answer to that question is no. Again, blatant bias mixed with limited understandings. Lukas19 00:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
This article should be called "Race and genetics", the title "Genetic views on race" doesn't make any sense to me. Alun 08:08, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Schwael 07:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I already warned about citation of:
""A study called Clines, Clusters, and the Effect of Study Design on the Inference of Human Population Structure and done by Neil Risch, Esteban Burchard, Elad Ziv and Hua Tang, two of them from Stanford University:"
No, that study was done by: Noah A. Rosenberg1*, Saurabh Mahajan2, Sohini Ramachandran3, Chengfeng Zhao4, Jonathan K. Pritchard5, Marcus W. Feldman3"
Now, Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease is also attributed to Noah A. Rosenberg1*, Saurabh Mahajan2, Sohini Ramachandran3, Chengfeng Zhao4, Jonathan K. Pritchard5, Marcus W. Feldman while it was done by: Neil Risch, Esteban Burchard, Elad Ziv and Hua Tang.
So if you cant manage these simple points dont edit the correct form. Lukas19 01:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
This user keeps reverting. After being told 4 times, he finally comprehended that sections "Genetic variation at the individual level" and "size of variation" contain same arguments. (And section "size of variation" didnt contain the counter arguments down in section "Genetic variation at the individual level"). Now his edits put the article AGAIN repeating arguments. For ex:
Section: "But is the variation by geographic origin distinct enough to count as race"
"While geographical origin can be inferred from genetics, observed geographically distributed human genetic variation does not amount to the sort of discontinuous distribution that would be expected if the human population were descended from distinct lineages, neither is the variation great enough for human populations to be considered subspecies, the usual biological synonym for race.[7]"
Just down, section "Do biologically distinct races exist?"
Race is generally used as a synonym for subspecies, which traditionally is a geographically circumscribed, genetically differentiated population. Sometimes traits show independent patterns of geographical variation such that some combination will distinguish most populations from all others. To avoid making "race" the equivalent of a local population, minimal thresholds of differentiation are imposed. Human "races" are below the thresholds used in other species, so valid traditional subspecies do not exist in humans. A "subspecies" can also be defined as a distinct evolutionary lineage within a species. Genetic surveys and the analyses of DNA haplotype trees show that human "races" are not distinct lineages, and that this is not due to recent admixture; human races are not and never were "pure". Instead, human evolution has been and is characterised by many locally differentiated populations coexisting at any given time, but with sufficient genetic contact to make all humanity a single lineage sharing a common evolutionary fate. [2]
Both uses same sources. One summarizes and one full quote. Again Leroi's arguments are repeated. If people will insist on reverting more than 10 times, the least they could do would be not to do such a crappy job... Lukas19 23:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is way too personal for you, being involved in this topic in real life. You keep pushing your own unique POV, Alun, but don't you stop to think that others deserve to be heard? Why, in the thick of all the debate, are your beliefs centrally important to the discussion, as unassailable? Savignac 08:51, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Well the thing is, I don't think he is any different than they. He is just as abrasive and lets loose on other people. I have never seen him apologize to those he is in philosophical disagreement with, because he is "right no matter what". Savignac 09:19, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
You write more polite than you act, but then again, it is condescending, with the pretense that you are in the right philosophically, simply because you ass-kiss the establishment that lets you spew your acid theories, while attacking another type of establishement that is in real life. So Wikipedia is your venue to disperse racist science. I get that. It's your thing. It's not mine. Your personal user page and edit history are justification for my scrutiny of your involvement in this array of topics. You are always taking sides; I just want no triumphalism, no "seal of infallible approval" being appended to make it truer than true, because I am not a True Believer and no matter what conviction you have in these matters, it doesn't give you a right to violate WP:POINT, even if the WP:BIAS is entirely in your favor. Wikipedia editors do not represent the average sort of citizen, but the intelligentsia and their quirky POVs. Savignac 09:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
BTW Jeeny...if these types of situations always seem to be associated with User:Wobble, regardless of the many other people involved at odd times (but always him), then why wouldn't anybody suspect him of being at least partially at fault for this misery of his that loves company? That's naive. Savignac 12:54, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
The crackpot views of Wikipedians who break WP:POINT day in and day out, to preach the "truth" to passing readers, do not need to be heard, or acknowledged as influential. You may believe in memetic propagandization, but that's your problem. Savignac 21:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Who is naive to believe that there is no academic racism taking place? Savignac 17:56, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
You can have this mind game to yourself. Savignac 04:43, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay; mindless pedantics. Spin in circles on your own. Savignac 05:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
It's pedantic, because it swims in theoretical circles and comes to no factual conclusion. Relativism prevents a completely accurate picture, especially with the preconceptions, unconscious or otherwise, in those connected to the study. People rely on inferences and their personal filters to decide what to believe. In any case, if you reply again, I will not continue on my part. Savignac 05:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Back to the point. This section was added by
User:Lukas19 on the 10th of January, so ten months or so ago. Since then Lukas19 has been banned for one year by
Arbcom and his suspected
sockpuppets
User:KarenAE and
User:KarenAER have also been blocked indefinately, which extends Lukas19's block. His concern over my reverts is hardly relevant ten months after the event. The article has been comprehensively rewritten in in the meantime, and not by me. Muntuwandi has totally transformed the article, and though I cannot claim to be a fan of the changes he has made, I can acknowledge that he has made it more accessible, it was probably overly technical before his changes.
[3] Though I note that Dbachmann has expressed some concern that the article has strayed off topic, a concern I share.
[4] So this section is regarding some specific changes that were made ten months ago and which are not remotely relevant to the current article. Furthermore although I am not a big fan of the changes Muntuwandi has made, I have not attempted to move the article back towards my preferred version, something Savignac has stated that I am constantly guilty of.
[5] So you see I am perfectly happy with compromise, as long as an editor can support their edits with reliable sources fairly. The inclusion of personal opinion is specifically against the three most important Wikipeda policies, which is why we should all, always have a zero tolerance approach to the inclusion of original research. Unless Savignac has something specific to say about the article an about the changes made ten moths ago, then I see no reason to be having this surreal and irrelevant discussion. This page is not here to discuss Savignac's personal opinion about the state of science (something he appears to know very little about) or about his opinions of me personally (I really do not care what he thinks about me). I suspect Savignac of being a sockpuppet of
User:Fourdee due to his very similar talk page style of attacking other editors (especially his tendency to describe editors who challenge him as having a pov to push and of not being neutral), his description of science and scientists as being biased and fabricating results when it does not support his personal opinions, rather than him simply providing the reliable sources he has been asked for, his queer opinions about "race", and the fact that he clearly knows his way around Wikipedia, and is therefore probably not the newbie he claims to be.
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
Alun
07:28, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay; I'll take Fourdee as a nice pseudonym...though I'm not sure that identity has had any sexual misunderstanding with User:deeceevoice, or Jeeny? or otherwise with other color-afflicted folks such as yourself, as well as with people all over the map, from Mediterraneanists to Nordicists. I take arrogance from all rich, fat fucks, but I don't give it to the poor, vanquished souls under your elite, anti-God, goose-stepping abolitionism. I'm everybody to everyone. I'm your perfect, raceless chameleon. Savignac 08:18, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I have removed the following text
There are variety of ways in which 'race' is used in biological literature. <ref>Pigliucci ''et al.'' (2003)</ref>
because this citation does not occur in the references list, so how can anyone heck it claims this? I have asked Lukas before to learn how to cite sources properly, ther eis still a source cited by a single URL link in the article, this needs to be dealt with by Lukas or I will remove it. Alun 07:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
There are many severe problems with this article that deserve mention. However, due to the nature of despotic supervisors, politics and the general instability that comes with being in a deadend situation (if it's not possible to agree on something like mathematical truth, then it sure as hell ain't possible to agree on the nature of human origins), I shall not criticise the whole of this article. Here are some points : 1) NO MATHS. Nowhere. There's *mention* of mathematics. But not one equation. Nowhere. That one observation attests more weight to the validity of this 'science' than all the others put together probably would. Do the math, or don't bother writing the article. 'Mentioning' Principal Component Analysis Sounds all respectable (in the same way that 'collateral damage' makes 'massacre' sound a little less harsh), but what does the term mean? Answer, you the reader can't know as they haven't been shown the workings (even if they had, they would probably pick up on the lack of 'rigour' in some of the statistical issues that are bought up (the philosophy of statistics being what it is).
2) The "This genetic distance map was made in 2007 using statistical Euclidean distance.[33]" remark is interesting - how is such a distance defined (in a reasonable and non-nonsensical way given that *so little* is still known about DNA and how it is that introns and exons fold, meander and generally dance in a way that would make Torvell and Dean look like amateurs when expressing proteins? How does *any* definition of distance make sense, let along a *linear* or 'well-behaved' notion such as Euclidean distance? Even if such a notion of distance did make sense - it wouldn't make much sense (though, again, I would have to do the maths before being capable of proving that Euclidean metrics are not curvilinear enough to do the job of describing distance - now *I'm* speaking nonsense). I'm willing to accept the validity of this reference, or whatever you call it - but it needs better explanation if this is to be done.
3) " genetic distance matrix among the 26 population samples, based on 29 polymorphic genes with 121 alleles." This remark, from Jensen, is interesting - what on earth does it mean? How are such 'genetic distance matrices' formed? Given the importance of what is being spoken about here, I would hope that all the necessary statistical theorems have been tied together using some Proof checking utilities, otherwise, well, you would be basing your conclusions on bad mathematical models (ie: you'd probably be wrong). Clearly, there is room for statistics here, which, given the amount of statistical errors that social scientists (and scientists and mathematicians) are in general prone towards making, is quite troubling given that which is being claimed.
4) General lack of a 'method' or lack of access to experimental data : It is my opinion that a graph, picture, or, indeed, a paper is not worth publishing unless all the details associated with how it was generated have been published online with it, together with useful software and tools needed to process that information.
I've rambled too long on some subjects that I don't fully understand (the point I'm making here is that I'm guessing quite a few other people publishing this stuff don't understand it that well either).
Please correct me if I'm wrong, or if you misunderstand my comments. MrASingh 23:03, 14 Feb 2006 (UTC)
Clearly, I could rant on forever here... [User:MrASingh|MrASingh]] 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Regarding this edit. It is factually incorrect to claim that "Not a small proportion according to Edwards. ". Edwards does not dispute the fact that the differences are small. He disputes that this observation automatically leads to the conclusion that "race" is not a biological construct. Edwards argument is not that Lewonin's statistical analysis is wrong, nor that variation is not small, his argument is that what is important is how the small variation is structured when it comes to determining if races are biological or not.
These conclusions are based on the old statistical fallacy of analysing data on the assumption that it contains no information beyond that revealed on a locus-by-locus analysis, and then drawing conclusions solely on the results of such an analysis. The ‘taxonomic significance’ of genetic data in fact often arises from correlations amongst the different loci, for it is these that may contain the information which enables a stable classification to be uncovered.....There is nothing wrong with Lewontin’s statistical analysis of variation, only with the belief that it is relevant to classification. Human genetic diversity: Lewontin’s fallacy A.W.F. Edwards
Long and Kittles paper Human Genetic Diversity and the Nonexistence of Biological Races is more informative. Here they claim that FST is only relevant when calculated on a population by population basis. They conclude that
a great deal of genetic variation within groups is consistent with each of these [race] concepts. However, none of the race concepts is compatible with the patterns of variation revealed by our analyses.
They think that none of the current concepts of race are consistent with their observations, because their best fit model for human population structure does not conform to any of the proposed models. They do not claim that this invalidates the concept of biological "race", just that for humans this concept needs to be defined in such a way as to explain the observed diversity and population structure, and no current concepts do this. Their main criticism of Lewonin is that he assumes that all populations are independent, and that all populations are equally distant from each other, whereas in reality many human populations represent sub-sets of other populations, for example all out of Africa populations are sub-sets of the ancient African population. They claim that their observations support this. Alun 08:17, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I have had a bit of a reorganisation. I have tried to avoid changing the meanings or emphasis of any section. Please be assured that any section that seems to stress one point of view over another, when it didn't before is purely due to oversight on my part. I did not come intending to make such a large change, but I fond that many sections repeated other sections, and certain sections needed to be merged into other sections, I am assuming this is due to the fact that this article is essentially made up from three previous articles. The main things I have done are to try and rationalise the article, as it makes sense to me. Therefore sections that appeared to be discussing the validity of "race" as a concept I have moved to the section "Do Biologically Distinct Races Exist?", etc. Edward's criticism of Lewontin occured in several places, I have put it in the "Genetic variation and human populations", it is especially relevant to the "Multilocus Allele Clusters" sub-section as this is the crux of his argument. I have also had a go at explaining this argument, Edwards argument is excellent, and exlains why the use of multiple loci is effective very well. Further I have removed two extensive paragraphs, not because there was anything wrong with them per se, but because as I was reading them I got the impression that they were identical to something else I had read just recently. Sure enough they were directly copied from athe paper The Use of Racial, Ethnic, and Ancestral Categories in Human Genetics Research, by the Race, Ethnicity, and Genetics Working Group, National Human Genome Research Institute, Am. J. Hum. Genet. 77:000–000, 2005. This is obviously plagiarism and is not allowed, these sections were unatributed, and even if they had been they represented far too long sections to be compliant with WP:QUOTE. I'm now going to have a go at making a graphic to explain how multi-locus clusters work, I'll base it on Edward's example. Hope I have not troden on anyones toes here, it really was only meant as a bit of reorganisation, if I have inadvertantly removed important info, please understand this was not my intent. Alun 16:21, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I've made some diagrams, I don't know how clear they are.
Are these figures of any value for explaining the advantage of using multi locus allele clusters? Do they explain what Edwards is getting at in his essay? Sometimes a diagram can explain concepts better than words, but sometimes they can be confusing. These diagrams make sense to me, I'd like to include them. Some constructive comments would be nice. Alun 18:43, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Multi-Locus Allele Clusters
|
OK, I've made an infobox, thought it might be good to have a single place where this concept could be explained. Any thoughts? I'm going to put it into the article. Feel free to make changes and discuss how it can be improved. Alun 18:35, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
and this from Tishkoff and KiddThe Big Few races can seem real in samples of size N (Norway, Nigeria, Nippon, Navajo). That is, if one examines only the geographic extremes, differences appear large because they can be seen in comparisons between graphic and tree-like presentations of the same data. In that sense it is sometimes said that there are only four or five major patterns of variation. But if we look at geographically closer or intermediate populations, differences diminish roughly proportionately. Even our view of the Big Few might change were it not for our curious convenience of overlooking places such as India. Who are those pesky billion? One race? A mix of the other already-sampled races? A multiplicity of races, as has often been suggested? [12]
This is more or less what the infobox actually says, except that the infobox doesn't talk about race, because it is about a method, not a concept. Besides which, this is not a comment on the validity of the statistics or method, it is a comment on sampling errors, all statistical analyses are contingent on non biased sampling methods, it is also true that in genetic studies there is a bias in sampling, the vast majority of samples are taken from Europeans, the descendants of Europeans and the North American population, look at any of the papers and it is obvious this is true. It is also obvious that regions like Africa (which, let's face it is appallingly under represented given it's greater genetic diversity) and India usually only have small segments of their populations sampled, but to get a good unbiased sampling there should be more sampling from different geographic areas in these regions. This is just my opinion, but I doubt that any geneticist worth their salt would disagree, the more samples from as diverse a population as possible would be the aim of all people associated with this field. Alun 13:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)Although the amount of genetic diversity between populations is relatively small compared with the amount of genetic diversity within populations, populations usually cluster by geographic region based on genetic distance (Fig. 4). Rosenberg et al.43 analyzed 377 microsatellites genotyped in 52 global populations using a clustering algorithm (STRUCTURE45) to assign individuals to subgroups (clusters) that have distinctive allele frequencies. They could distinguish five main clusters of individuals that corresponded to broad geographic regions (Africa, Middle East and Europe, Asia, Oceania, Americas). They identified a sixth cluster specific to a Pakistani population, which probably reflects high levels of inbreeding and genetic drift in that group. Without reference to sampling location, individuals from the same predefined population nearly always shared membership in one of the five main clusters. There were some exceptions, however, for populations from geographically intermediate regions (e.g., Central Asia, the Middle East), in which individuals had partial membership in multiple clusters, especially those of flanking geographic regions, indicating a continuous gradient of variation among some regions. Thus, although the main clusters correlate with the common concept of 'races' (as expected, because populations from different parts of the world have larger differences in allele frequencies than populations from the same region of the world), the analyses by STRUCTURE do not support discrete boundaries between races. [13]
"Human genetic variation can be used to deduce the geographical origins of an individual's recent ancestors, this is possible because a small proportion of human genetic variation is geographically distributed"
Whether only a small proportion of human genetic variation is geo distributed or not is disputed. This is discussed in "Multilocus Allele Clusters" section:
"Since the 1980s it has been known that human genetic variation is low relative to other species, this is usually attributed to the recent origins of our species, and tends to support the recent single-origin hypothesis (or Out of Africa). [3] It has also been claimed that most of this small variation is distributed at the individual and local level (about 90-94%), with the remaining 6-10% distributed at the continental (or racial) level. [4] This observation has been used to argue that racial classifications are not valid when within group variation exceeds between group variation. [5]
A. W. F. Edwards claimed in 2003 that such conclusions are unwarranted because the argument ignores the fact that most of the information that distinguishes populations is hidden in the correlation structure of the data and not simply in the variation of the individual factors. [6] While it makes Lewontin's argument unwarranted, Edward's paper does not address the existence or absence of human race, see Lewontin's Fallacy.
Also, it has been argued that the calculation of within group and between group diversity has violated certain assumptions regarding human genetic variation. Calculation of this variation is known as FST and Long and Kittles (2003) have questioned the validity of this reproducible statistic....... "
So the method of calculation is disputed. That also means that numerical results are also disputed since different methods may yield to different answers. Hence it is disputed that only a small proportion of human genetic variation is geo distributed. Indeed, Edwards accuses popular articles:
"In popular articles that play down the genetical differences among human populations..." and goes on "...It is not true that ‘‘racial classification is .. . of virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance’’. It is not true, as Nature claimed, that ‘‘two random individuals from any one group are almost as different as any two random individuals from the entire world’’, and it is not true, as the New Scientist
claimed, that ‘‘two individuals are different because they are individuals, not because they belong to different races’’ and that ‘‘you can’t predict someone’s race by their genes’’. Such
statements might only be true if all the characters studied were
independent, which they are not."
So it is POV to include "small" there. If people insist, we can repeat the debate in "Multilocus Allele Clusters" section but that would be stupid given the size of the article. An alternative would be to say that that "small variation" conclusion is found by locus by locus analysis, as apposed to a more comprehensive analysis which would find the correlations and hence yield a different number. Lukas19 03:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Your quotes of Edwards above regarding popular articles are irrelevant, none of the quotes deals with variation, only with classification. That's kind of the point he's making, that humans can be classified into different groups, even though variation is mainly at the individual level, with only a small amount at the population level. Edwards comments are quite correct, but they do not support your assertion that there is a dispute about the variation mainly existing at the within group level, and he clearly does not make this claim. Please provide evidence that most variation is not distributed at the within population level, because neither Long and Kittles, nor Edwards dispute this and it is incorrect to claim that they do. This fact has been reproduced hundreds of times, and I do not believe that any reputable geneticists disputed it. I have tried to explain in the infobox how multiple loci can contribute to classification, it is clear in the infobox that although variation remains constant between Population I and Population II, it is easier to assign an individual to either population based on three loci instead of one. This is due to the cumulative effect of the loci, not due to a lowering of variation. Alun 06:38, 6 March 2007 (UTC)With k loci, therefore, the distance between two individuals from the same population will be binomial with mean k(p2þq2) and variance k(p2þq2)(1�p2�q2) and if from different populations binomial with mean 2kpq and variance 2kpq(1 2pq). These variances are, of course, the same. [15]
mean kp in population 1 and kq in population 2, with variance kpq in both cases. Continuing with the former gene frequencies and taking k ¼ 100 loci (say), the mean numbers are 30 and 70 respectively, with variances 21 and thus standard deviations of 4.58. With a difference between the means of 40 and a common standard deviation of less than 4.6, there is virtually no overlap between the distributions, and the probability of misclassification is infinitesimal, simply on the basis of counting the number of ‘þ’ genes. Fig. 1 shows how the probability falls off for up to 20 loci."
About the modified form, statements, "this is possible even though most human genetic variation occurs within sub-populations and not between sub-populations" and "therefore close geographical proximity strongly correlates with genetic similarity" seem contradictory so we need to explain those terms; ie: genetic variation and genetic similarity Lukas19 17:31, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
We need some clean up Lukas19 03:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I have made several proposals and am happy to discuss more if anyone has any other ideas.
Alun
14:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Genetics for the human race lots of papers and reviews. Good resource. There was a symposium at Howard University as well, sponsored I think by Nature. Alun 19:17, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
The vast majority of scientists state that : "common racial classifications are insufficient, inaccurate, or biologically meaningless." Thus, writing that "Some scientists argue that common racial classifications are insufficient, inaccurate, or biologically meaningless." is giving undue weight to fringe theories. This is not acceptable, even less on such a sensitive subject where people are looking for what modern science has to say concerning this problem. This article needs expert attention from a mainstream scientist. Tazmaniacs 23:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
this article needs a major clean up and reorganization. a lot of stuff is repeated. I think we need a defninite split into a for and against camp of scientists and their respective views.
Muntuwandi
23:55, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I think this section should be delected. It is mostly a collection of various quotes. Most of the arguments have already been presented in earlier section, so it adds nothing new but takes up unnecessary space. Muntuwandi 17:51, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
The articles are discussing the same issues thus they should be merged. The title of Human genetic variation sounds less controversial. Muntuwandi 16:34, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Aires, Argentina, Using Uniparentally and Biparentally Inherited Genetic Markers]
This is a peer reviewed scientific journal that published these facts. Muntuwandi 19:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism site and gene-watch.org spefically says these Genetic testings are faulty at best. I have proven that they are not reiable therefore I am removing it. Unless you can find an arugement against whwat the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism is doing which I dought. XGustaX 19:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
XGustaX i read the article on Genetic Markers Not a Valid Test of Native Identity. this article does not contradict any of the findings. This article is against using DNA testing for tribal affiliation
So it does not dispute that mtDNA studies can be used for ancestry purposes. Muntuwandi 19:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
No, It states that DNA testing AT ALL cannot determine both tribal and ancestrial origins. Read the article carfully.
XGustaX 19:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Are you saying that all the studies based Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups are useless. Muntuwandi 20:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
No, of course not. But For Native Americans they are as the Article explains that is why I removed only the Native American part.
XGustaX
20:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
If someone has a maternal ancestor who is native american it will show up in your mtDNA. At the moment this is not disputed. The whole study of mtDNA, the single origin hypothesis, historic migrations are all based on mtDNA. At the moment the study is on solid foundation. The council you are talking about is against testing Native americans but it is not talking about the caucasian population who have native american ancestry.
"the concept of using genetic tests to prove Native American ancestry is of relatively recent origin, but there are many problems with it. Perhaps foremost of these problems is that to make a genetic test the arbiter of whether someone is Native American is to give up a tribe’s sovereign ability to determine its own membership and relations."
The reason why is because even native americans are admixed so someone might say you do not have membership rights because you have european ancestry. They argue that it is cultural identity that is important. I recognize the problem with admixture testing of Native americans for this purpose but when it comes to the caucasian population, it makes no mention of its use.
This is not just about Native americans. Even white americans have african or native ancestry. And blacks have european and native ancestry. The above study is a peer reviewed scientific journal. when it comes to reputable sources, they do not get much more reputable. Maybe you are uncomfortable that someone found that 45% of Argentines have Native american mtdna. but that is what the study found. Muntuwandi 20:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC) Muntuwandi 20:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
You are misreading the article then because it clearly says mtDNA and Y-Chromosomal DNA testing are both inaccurate. The whole single origin is obviously flawed as the article points that out very very clearly.
Yes the article does touch upon trible indeity but it touches on how people use DNA testing to prove whether or not they are part Native american and this is just reiable because all the "Native American Markers" are actually found all over the world Including in Southern Europeans which is were most Argentines are from for example. You do not know me so please do not say I am not uncomfortable with the idea. When it seems you are the one dragging this conversation on and on. XGustaX 20:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, It is indeed. XGustaX 14:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
The reason is that if we believe their study then all mtDNA and Y-Chromosomal DNA testing is inaccurate. Yet we know this is not true because people are publishing journals According to the single origin hypothesis, native americans arrived from asia between 10000 and 33000 years ago. This was enough time for distinctive DNA markers to accumulate in them to distinguish native americans from all other populations. Yes some of the haplogroups or markers are found in other populations but the whole point of genetic testing is to find what is unique not what is the same. since humans are all very similar we share most of our DNA. What differs is what can be used to determine our ancestry. Are you saying it is impossible to test Native american DNA. At the moment the specific study cited is valid. I will agree to remove it if you find a specific source that says this peer reviewed study is invalid. Muntuwandi 20:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Again I am not saying it is impossible just very very unreiable. This source as well as the other one both say they are for example it says the DYS199 or , M3 as it is known, was tested however, (M3 or DYS199) is found in Southern Europeans as well. That is what i was spefically refering to, that totally disproves the peer reviewed study. In fact Unless you can disprove both sites by actually saying so the sources stand. Since both sources state very clearly these people who are publishing journals are working from a theory and nothing else. They have however, disproven the theory because they have found that these unique Native American markers are not unique to Native Americans at all. People all over the world including Europeans have these markers? There point is does this make them Native Americans? No of course not. The article if you read it which it seems you havn't yet has dsiproven the single origin hypothesis has been disproven by doing various other studies on other populations around the world. In other words the sources stand. They even state how scieniest stick to this theory too much and the assert that there are Native American Markers when in reality there are not. Again read the article because you havn't read it clearly otherwise why would I waste my time citing sources that inst totally against it. Again if you find a way to discredit these Native American organizations in some way by some sort of press release I will agree to put the information back but the sources stand strongly, since none of your sources do. XGustaX 20:40, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
No, Wikipedia also has a policy where only new and relevant information can be present (unless part of the a history section for example, Carlton S. Coon.) since this is a new study and since this does disprove much what the theory thought, We will have to remove it. I will add a section in the article about how testing for Native American ancestry cannot be so easily proven and it is very very diffcult to do so, unlike other "races". The source stands unless you can find something against it that isnt what they are talking about. It is indeed a peer reviewed journal since it is by experts, if it is not please prove it with sources other wise. Due to Wikipedia's rules we must leave it out. You keep saying that I think or the source thinks mtDNA or y chromosomal are wrong. That is not the case they are speficially saying so for Native Americans it is so. For Africans and other "races" you are right I have found none. Since None of your sources disprove what that Biocolonism is wrong or The Council for Responible Genetics both experts in their fields,then we will have to keep it this way.
XGustaX
21:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
To you it may seem logical but it has been disproven indeed. Now if you want to keep this up we can but I have sources saying other wise and you well you do not. I think it is funny that you have tried to shoot that theses sources as much as possible you need to learn to be sercue just because you do not like something Muntuwandi. XGustaX 05:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
If you want to include your source I have no problem, I will not remove it because that is what wikipedia is all about, unless you think your source is not good enough. let us put both your source and my source as a compromise. Muntuwandi 02:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
No, I am sorry Muntuwandi. There are many sciencist that do not agree with Native American testing and I think it is Racist to include that into the article! I will not stand by racism on this article. The article is about Race and Genetics it should be well known that Native American testing has it flaws but some sciencist still fail to see its flaws. This should be included. I have made a compromise with you to including the African DNA information which I think is fair.
XGustaX
02:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
No it is not just like how do not accept the skull pictures, even though they are based on complete science no. I completly agree with you on the skull issue by the way. I do not accpet this treatment of Native Americans, not only that it against WP:RS to included outdated information unless its a part of a history section. I personally will not support Racism. XGustaX 02:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
What racism, white americans have their admixture tested, african americans have their admixture tested, brazilians regularly test admixture, why is it racist when it comes to argentina, what makes argentina different from all the other cases. Muntuwandi 02:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't talking about just Argentina as you can see I removed EVERYTHING about Native Americans DNA testing. The article mentions all Native American DNA testing. It is racist to say a certain group of people are mixed when it is known the World is mixed. We all come from Africa. It is just like you and the Skull Pictures you do not support them because they label people, right? XGustaX 02:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
This is not labelling it is admixture, if we say african americans have some european ancestry, is it racist. Is it racist to say many white americans have black ancestry no. It is a political issue when tribal membership uses dna to decide, for purposes such as funding or affirmative action. but just to study history and genealogy it is not.
your article was published in 2001
After your article was published people continue to study mtDNA. the source i intend to add is from 2004, long after your critique. So it means your critique is outdated. Muntuwandi 03:10, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes it is labeling Muntuwandi is pointing out other people due to racial mixture and I will stand for it, since we are all mixed. The article explains that too if you read it. It states that some sciencist assert those claims. However since this is a newer study and as well known to many sciencist especially ones from other countries it is not well known of course. There for it is valid explaining how other information is indeed outdated. That is what I keep saying, and since this true since many have published this article over including the Council for Responiable Genetics and other organizations. XGustaX 03:16, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Your source is outdated from 2001, and the source i intend to add is from 2004. So what is your excuse? Muntuwandi 03:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't matter when it was published, infact because it was published later just proves their whole point even more. I just explained why, many scientist are still using the "native American markers". The article explains that too if you read it. It states that some sciencist assert those claims however all Native American Markers are present in other populations all around the world.
XGustaX
03:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Your study is not new. In fact everything they are mentioning is already known. Your source says haplogroub b is not a good indicator of Native american ancestry because it is found in asia. But that is already known, see Haplogroup B (mtDNA). You have to understand the difference between an haplotype and a haplogroup. A haplogroup is a collection of several haplotypes. Haplogroup B (mtDNA) will be family of certain haplotypes, but some haplotypes will be specific to native americans and others to Asians because asians and native americans split at least 11000 years ago.
For example all non Africans are part of the super haplogroup l3. but they are then divided in to sub-haplogroups. Europeans are a daughter haplogroup of L3 which is N. and so on. So the concept of saying haplogroub b cannot be used as an indicator for native american ancestry is an oversimplification. Because there are sub haplogroups B1 and B2 which are only specific to native americans. That is why your source is political, it is just trying to poke holes in the science to avoid testing people for native american ancestry and instead use self identification or tribal affiliation. It is not my wish to get into that debate. my main interest is reconstructing history. Muntuwandi 04:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
your article mentions false negatives, well in this case they are not testing native americans so a false negative on a caucasian will reduce his or her admixture. That means that the caucasian could in fact have more amerindian admixture. Muntuwandi 04:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I have explained to you a thousand times already, the tribal part and political aspects are just parts of the article. It is not the whole arugment, What don't you understand about this?The article explains a vast amount problems with Native American testing. The article mentions false negatives just like it mentions false positives, because it talking in board sense for people trying to prove or not whether they are or not at least part Native American. Yes you are right, that is another reason it is not reiable to test whether someone is native american or not. XGustaX 04:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
why don't you include your source and i will include mine. If your intentions are in good faith you should agree to this. I am willing to compromise so that you can include your source but you are unwilling to compromise and include my source, that is what I do not understand. I beleive your source to be political not about science but I am willing to compromise and include it. But you on the other hand are about removing cited information that is from a reliable source. You do not wish to get into that debate but here you are... Muntuwandi 04:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
It is not Political, How is Jonthan Marks a expert in molecular anthropology, evolutionary theory, history, human genetics, and sociology and philosophy of science. Doing a Political paper? He clearly states his science and Brett Lee Shelton clearly states the Political side of the issue. You keep saying this but you fail to see all this infront of you. My intentions are in good faith but having outdated material is forbidden. There fore we can debate this all night and week, but the source clearly shows how there science is flawed even giving the genes they used and HOW they are flawed. You should assume good faith, because I am simply trying to make the article better on a subject that is not too well known apparently. You said you did not want to get into this debate but then again here you are... XGustaX 04:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
You are being unreasonable your article is from 2001 and mine is from 2004, how can that be outdated. Muntuwandi 04:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Unreasonable? You are the one who wont let anyone edit the article. I am sorry I wasnt aware you were the dicator of this page. The Publishing date doesnt matter the information revealed in this article is newer then the what sciencist thought they were "Native American Markers"
.
XGustaX
04:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
making stuff up Muntuwandi 04:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Making stuff up? You are being unreasonable. You are not letting anyone edit this page and Yes the article point these things out serveal times. XGustaX 04:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Like I said let us include both sources and let any readers decide for themselves. Muntuwandi 04:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Like I said no, when it comes to science newer discoveries need to be replaced. XGustaX 04:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC) I extend a hand of compromise and you have not accepted Muntuwandi 04:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
This is not about Compromising this is about following the rules of Wikipedia in science related issues. XGustaX 04:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Why don't you include that some scientists believe that it is not possible to test for native american ancestry using mtdna because of ABC. Muntuwandi 05:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I will, I am going to write up a lengthy section about this, however since this section will be added it will no longer follow the rules of Wikipedia since this is a science related matter not a historical related matter.
XGustaX
05:03, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Thats fine with me as long as it is WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. Muntuwandi 05:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, That is all because we will have to remove the testing as it will not follow Wikipedia's rules once I add this section into the article. I am glad we could to agreement that is all I wanted. If you would like check back tomorrow to check for the sections WP:NPOV and everything will be cited from the article. Fair enough. XGustaX 05:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
We need to present both sides of the story, that is NPOV. Muntuwandi 05:19, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
We can't in this case, since this is a science related issue we have to get newer discoveries. If this issue were however a historical issue for example then you are right. XGustaX 05:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
even in science disputes arise. but the newer studies are the sources I have included. I can even provide sources from this year 2007 involving native american mtDNA Muntuwandi 05:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
No, since this issue is science based, since this falls under the WP:NPOV section of:
favoring a scientist, inventor, or theory for a non-scientific reason."
Since it falls under this, we cannot. This is for scientific reasons. As I have said earlier it does not matter what date it is from but whether or not the source uses newer knowleage about "Native American Markers" and there reliability. Since the article makes mention of this too. XGustaX 05:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
don't forget to add your source Muntuwandi 13:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I will. This is not my point of view as I said, I am following the section from stated above. This is what we have to do. XGustaX 13:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I said we should compromise you include your statement criticizing the sources I have added. This is not communist era where you censor information that you do not like. Muntuwandi 13:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Did I ever say that? No... If that was the case, which is not, look whos talking. You are the one who doesnt like the skull pictures. Do not sound like a hypercrite Muntuwandi ok.
XGustaX
13:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
yes I do not like the skull picture because they are oversimplified. I am very interested in skulls but the topic is too deep that you cannot use 3 skulls to be representative of 6 billion people. I said that there is more information needed in the craniofacial anthropometry regarding skulls. I do not mind even using real pictures instead of drawings. Muntuwandi 13:50, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, so could I not say the same thing about these markers? These "markers" are only very few and they also oversimplify people. These "markers" are found in other people around especially. We are all mixed just like we are all different features for example with the skulls. XGustaX 13:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
your source has got some useful information about tribal identity, it is not very scientific but it is useful. your source mentions haplogroup b but it does not mention b1 and b2 which are specific to native americans. Muntuwandi 14:04, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
It mentions B because B is both B1 and B2,Just like M3 or DYS199 is named M3 but you can use either name you use B1 and B2 to spefic but B when you are talking about both and since they are both "Native American markers", comon now... Do we have to discuss this again Muntuwandi. How many times must we discuss this there is a lot of science in this article if you dont want to see thats your problem, but it just proves my point even more of you being a hypercrite. XGustaX 14:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I would too. I want this to work out. How about this for a compromise. We leave the African DNA tests and remove the Native American ones. Since we can't seem to both want to keep the article the extact way we want. That way we both win, We both get to keep a part of the article that we like. XGustaX 17:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
thats where I can see that your intentions are not honorable. You do not mind talking about african admixture but because you have seen that your beloved argentina has not been studied for african admixture. Muntuwandi 02:12, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
No Muntuwandi, please believe me when I say this. I really want us to reach an compromise tonight. If you need to be conviced further please read your talk page. I am being honest. Can we agree on this compromise? I think its fair. XGustaX 02:23, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
the compromise that I can offer is for you to find scholarly and peer reviewed scientific journals that dispute genetic testing for Native american ancestry or admixture. I searched for these articles making sure that they were reliably sourced, only for someone to say that they do not like them with no satisfactory explanation and causing an unnecessary and childish edit war. Do I really need to convince anyone that the world is round and not flat in 2007. the only reason why you are able to cause this much trouble is simply because most editors to this article are inactive at the moment. but any responsible wikipedian does not censor reputable information simply because they do not like it. what you do is dig up counter sources. There are people who have written books and articles that some would consider racist such as Arthur Jensen or J. Philippe Rushton but we do not delete their articles even though most of us do not like what they have written. Its not wikipedia policy to give personal advice, but please GROW UP!!!!! Muntuwandi 02:49, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, but that is not the case, I do not want it deleted just because I do not like it. We do not delete there articles because those people you mentioned are noblitity and can be included. Which is a totally different reason then we have hear. Look we need to compromise and I am really trying to, as I have said before many times this is written by experts and it is well known by many sciencist, I do not want to debate this any longer. I am saying as a compromise we include the African DNA studies but leave out the Native American studies. We are suppose to be compromising and not aruging as we have done for the last two days, I think this is best compromise we both get something we want but we have to sacrifice something as well. XGustaX 02:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
White Latin American says
The evolution of Latin America's modern population is embedded in a long and widespread history of intermixing between Europeans, Amerindians and sub-Saharan Africans, and racial categories are more so a social construct there than in other parts of the world. Consequently, many White Latin Americans have a degree of Amerindian and/or sub-Saharan African ancestry.
all this study is putting some numbers to this. it is widely known and accepted. Muntuwandi 03:13, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I would be ok with that with that statement. However, We need to compromise and I am willing, since we compromising which means we both need loose something in order to make the article better. Like I said before I am willing to keep the African DNA and remove the Native American ones. It is not because I do not like them but because I have no clear sources against African DNA studies. Thats how a compromise works. XGustaX 03:18, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Thank you Patrick. It is very interesting, it just comes to show races are indeed as you said a fuzzy area. XGustaX 14:04, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
There are numerous problems with using genetics to determine whether or not one has Native American ancestry, and/or alternatively to determine tribal membership. The most obvious problem is that being Native American is a question of politics and culture, not biology: one is Native American if one is recognized by a tribe as being a member. And one is not necessarily a member of a tribe simply because one has Native American ancestors.
this is a political debate Muntuwandi 11:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
It says Very Very Clearly There are numerous problems with using genetics to determine whether or not one has NATIVE AMERICAN ANCESTRY, AND/OR ALTERNATIVELY TO DETERMINE TRIBAL MEMEBERSHIP. Basically saying that using Genetics to prove Native American ancestry or/and tribial memebership or to test if your part of certain tribe is flawed. They mention this all through out the article, talking about both whether you are to be accepted as part of a tribe or just to be tested for ancestry. Later on in the article it talks more about problems with testing for Native American ancestry using DNA testing. I do not see it getting any clearer. We are suppose to be compromising or else we both could get blocked ,but we cant come to compromise? XGustaX 13:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Let me get this straight, you are trying to say that information un Muntuwandi's source shoulkd not be included because your source says it is unreliable? Is that the basic jist of this argument? -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 14:38, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Not exactly. XGustaX 16:55, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I have reviewed the sources. Here is what I think.
I've had another look at the Marks material. He is a professionally qualified writer,professor at the University of North Carolina, and there is nothing whatsoever wrong or misleading in what he has to say about genetics. According to Spencer Wells,
the M45 mutation occurred around 35,000 years ago. That's plenty of time for somebody to have found his way back across the Bering Strait and for him or his male line to have made it all the way to Europe. The M3 mutation occurred around 10,000 years ago. So it would not be surprising to find some individuals possessing that marker even in Iceland.
But the problem for "American Indian" markers is less intense than it is for almost any other group, i.e., if the lines are a little fuzzy with Native Americans they are much more fuzzy for groups that had historically known contacts, at least since Roman Empire times, all over Eurasia and Africa.
The reason that Marks was writing for the website where his essay was found is that he is trying to explain to people outside the Native American community the multiple reasons why some people are not credited with status as members of some tribe or other and/or why they are not regarded as Native Americans despite the genetic evidence of one or more markers. He clearly distinguishes between the genetic evidence, which is his area of expertise and which he is endeavoring to explain to people, and the other criteria for membership that people use.
What does all of this stuff have to say about race and genetics? Basically, it is a good object lesson on how mixed we all are. We are not like a steam table with seven or eight separate food containers. We are more like a stew pot in which different ingredients have been added along different spots on the rim of the pot. Salt added to the north end at the top doesn't take forever to reach the south end at the bottom. In between there would be a steady gradient were it not for the fact that there are convection currents involved. P0M 21:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
The dubious part of Marks article is when they try to poke holes in the Mitochondrial DNA testing. The whole concept of identifying admixture or tracing ancestry is based on identifying mutations that are found in one population and not in another. If all mutations were found to occur with equal frequency in all populations it would not be possible. But since Native Americans have been separated from Asia for a couple of thousand years, they have mutations that are unique to them. Scientists know this when testing for admixture. This is why page 546 (4 of 15) says:
Molecular Markers. The samples were screened for the following mtDNA haplogroups: A1, A2, B, C1, C2, D1, and D2 (native Americanspecific haplogroups); H, I, J, K, T, U, V, W, and European -specific haplogroups); and L1/L2 (African-specific haplogroups).
Even within a macro-haplogroup there are specific haplogroups that are localized and can be reliably used to determine admixture or ancestry. Muntuwandi 23:44, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
“ | Some of the haplotypes attributed to Native Americans are also found in people from other parts of the world. A, B, C, and D are found in North Asia, and X is found in southern Europe and Turkey. In fact, haplotype B, also called the “Asian 9 base pair deletion,” is found in some Japanese and almost all Samoans. Can a person who has haplotype B in her mtDNA claim to be Native American based on that information if almost all Samoans also have haplotype B? | ” |
People were asked to comment. here is my comment: As far as I can tell, this is the heart of the argument: Muntuwanda has articles that "published these facts" (19:50, 18 June 2007) and XGustaX has "proven that they are not reliable therefore I am removing it" (19:54, 18 June 2007). Most of the discussion is the same basic points, back and forth, and claims about which sources are superior. It seems to me that both editors think that there is something called "the facts" and that the purpose of this page is to figure out what they are so that they can be incorporated into the article. I suggest that, at least with this issue, the question of what are the facts is irrelevant. According to our NPOV policy it is not for us to decide what are the facts, what is the truth. It is for us to find out what are the major views, and provide an adequate account of the views. XGustavX comes close to admitting this when he writes of the reality of haplogroups, "No, of course not." but then s/he screws it up by writing "But For Native Americans they are as the Article explains that is why I removed only the Native American part." That one group of people (Native Americans) have a certain view (let's leave aside that there are many native American views) does not mean that other views e.g. those of molecular geneticists, or the US government, or whomever, gets removed. We represent multiple points of view. Muntuwandi writes, "After your article was published people continue to study mtDNA. the source i intend to add is from 2004, long after your critique. So it means your critique is outdated." which is just as silly as what XGustaX wrote - an article can be written one, two, or twenty years after another and that does not necessarily mean that the earlier article is "outdated." The earlier article expresses a point of view held by someone. If a later article shows that that person or that group has changed its view, then the earlier article is outdated. But if the later article represents a point of view held by someone else, then the earlier article is NOT outdated. We just have two different views. My advice is that the two of you should stop debating the truth and instead clearly identify the different points of view you have researched. Then you can spend time more productively ensuring that each point of view is represented accurately and clearly rather than a pointless debate over what views get included. But let's be clear: you are not including "the facts" or "the truth" but rather divverent views ov the facts, held by different people. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:31, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Muntuwandi, sometimes it seems to me that you change your argument. If your argument is that certain sources ought to be represented, e.g. articles you cited concerning mtDNA lineage, you know that I am sympathetic with your side. I agree with XGustaX that some Native Americans claim that "Genetic testing for at least for Native Americans is not reliable" but I strongly disagree that this is grounds for deleting the material you wish to include. Am I to understand that you DO accept that alternate views provided by XGustaX should be included too? Then I cannot fault you. However, there is a second issue which gets at the question of the relationship between the sources you cite concerning haplotypes and mtDNA lineages and the topic of this article, race and genetics - which gets to my attempt to include in the race article a section called "race as lineage." Alun was very critical of that and he and I had a very productive discussion on his talk page (now archived) but when he comes back from his Wikibreak I hope he and I will work together to improve the race article. The issue is, what exactly is the relevance of these mtDNA lineages for any discussion of race? I am not asking you for your opinion and I will not give my opinion. But the views of the authors of these articles and other molecular geneticists has to be accurate and clear. By the way, did you draw on Marks? i forget who brought him in, but he is definitely a reliable source. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:06, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Thank You. It was me who brought Marks in. It final seems we are reaching a consensus. Do not add chris into the equation as well as he was just a moderator, and had no interest in the subject. You do indeed keep changing your argument over and over again. Slrubenstein I am sorry if I screwed it up by saying Native American DNA testing only when in reality its genetic testing in general. XGustaX 17:34, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
There seems to be a strong consensus about this table so I am removing it from the article. YuZuu 14:28, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
no strong consensus. third parties reviewed the information and found it to be reliable Muntuwandi 14:40, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
There does seem to be a strong consensus, by XGustavX,201.235.38.117,P0M, and myself. If you do not like what is on the page simply because you do not like it, then tough. You seem to be the only one here against the information Muntuwandi. Everyone else agrees the information is reliable. YuZuu 14:43, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
The reasons have been stated to you over and over again, it appears and most people other then you and XGustavX have given their views. Please follow the consensus, on the talk page. Happy Wiking! YuZuu 23:54, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
TELL ME IF YOU NEED SOURCES,
Where do you take something like 45% of the Mtda AMERINDIAN chromosome!!!! IN ARGENTINIANS??? Thisis the most important genetic test in that country and shows that it's 80% European, and this is including immigrants and the entire population regerding their ethnic orgin.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/114025749/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
This just proves my article even more! Yes That means some that of the 19% of the total population have "Amerindian Markers", the Amerindian contribution ranges in those people from 1.5 to 84.5% in those people. Thank you for sharing this information. XGustaX 14:17, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
There seems to be a strong consensus about this table so I am removing it from the article.
YuZuu
14:28, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
First of all you need to understand that there are two methods of calculating admixture, one method is uniparental that is the mtdna or y-chromosomal tests. These tests do not measure admixture proportions of an individual, they simply indicate the presence of admixture and are used to measure the proportion of a population that is affected by admixture. They are also useful in studying sex-biased admixture
The second method is autosomal which measures the individual ancestry intermixture proportions. this study is obviously a lot more detailed and complex than uniparental studies. so by using autosomal admixture argentina is 80% european on average. but this does not mean that every argentinian is 80% european. No it is the average over the whole population. Some may be 100% European and others less than 80% european. In this study all 94 individuals had amerindian ancestry ranging from 1.5% to 84.5%. so in this study 100% of the individuals had some amerindian ancestry. This is even more than the estimates using uniparental admixture. This study does not contradict the uniparental studies. Furthermore this study was based on the Argentinian population in general and the uniparental study is based on those who self identify as caucasian. Muntuwandi 00:03, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
You argument doesn't make much sense for starters this used Autosomal testing was used in this test for the "Native American Markers" and indeed 80 precent were found to be of both lineages from Europe and 19 precent were found with these "Native American markers". Also it doesnt make any sense how a study with only Causaisans would be more accurate then one that does a survey of the whole population. XGustaX 00:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
"Some estimate that as much as 40% of the genome may contribute to intelligence[37]."
It is contradictory since 97% of the genome is junk DNA, therefore, it must be less than 3%.
I suggest removing that statement.
71.175.32.77 14:39, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I removed the paragraph: "In Argentina the process of Europeanization was most efficient since those who identify as white are 97% of the population. Some have therefore accused former Latin American governments of secretly promoting white supremacist policies. They cite the fact that many Nazi war criminals, such as Adolf Eichmann who lived in Argentina, were given safe havens in Latin America after the end of the world war 2."
Adolf Eichmann and Nazis had nothing to do with the general racial views of Argentinians. Talking about Nazis strays from the topic of this article.
Argentinians are generally of European descent because there the original amount of Native Americans was small and the climate was considered temperate enough for White people. If you wish to argue that Argentinian governments have been racist a more suitable foundation for that argument would be the Constitution of Argentina which includes Section 25 of Part 1: "The Argentinian Government shall foster European immigration".
I wrote this a while ago on the messy Race in the United States page (help requested if any of you are interested) but now am taking it out. I think it fits better here. Incorporate some/all if you wish: Calliopejen1 09:09, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
A recent American study indicates that "ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity—as opposed to current residence—is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population." [7]. Using 326 genetic markers, Tang et al. (2005) identified four genetic clusters among 3,636 individuals sampled from 15 locations in the United States. After recruiting people identifying as white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic, they were able to assign individuals to the "correct" groups, based on their DNA alone, for all but five individuals (an error rate of 0.14%).
The authors of this study also concluded that Hispanics' genes "generally represent a differential mixture of European, Native American, and African ancestry, with the proportionate mix typically depending on country of origin." The sample used in the study was composed of Mexican Americans, and was from a single location in Texas. [8]
While critics of the study acknowledge that biological genetic variation among humans exists, they "argue that the bulk of human variation is continuously distributed and, as a result, any categorization schema attempting to meaningfully partition that variation will necessarily create artificial truncations." [9] Because of this, they say, similar studies that have tried to allocate individuals into ancestry groups based on their DNA "have yielded varying results that are highly dependent on methodological design." [9]
i replaced the 2-20% figure, which came from the backintyme website. On that site, the author is not a geneticist but he cites the Shriver paper for the statement. I went back to the original shriver paper and what i added (0.7%, s.e.=0.9%) were the actual findings. The 1/3 have 2-20% statement is silly, because you could say 1/3 of Americans make between $60,000 and $1,000,000,000 per year, if you want to include Bill Gates in the mix. The current number is more informative.
I also deleted a bunch of unreferenced stuff that looked implausible. If anyone wants to find citations and readd it, have at it! Calliopejen1 10:40, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
It is not silly, I think you missed the point. The issue is what is the most black admixture that a white person can have and still look white. The study based on skin reflectance suggests that a white person can have up to 20% African admixture and still look white. Secondly the statistical analysis was done before watson and crick but it is an independent analysis using only statistics and is pretty much in agreement with shriver's study.
Muntuwandi 22:40, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I have made some changes regarding this content for the simple reason that any reading of the NY Times article in question does not support the claims made by this article. My biggest concern is the breach of Wikipedia guidelines regarding science and the popular press, we should avoid citing the popular press when we make scientific claims, but there were serious distortions even using the Times article as a source.
They report that with microcephalin, a new allele arose about 37,000 years ago, although it could have appeared as early as 60,000 or as late as 14,000 years ago. About 70 percent of people in most European and East Asian populations carry this allele of the gene, but it is much rarer in most sub-Saharan Africans.....With the other gene, ASPM, a new allele emerged 14,100 to 500 years ago, the researchers favoring a midway date of 5,800 years. The allele has attained a frequency of about 50 percent in populations of the Middle East and Europe, is less common in East Asia, and is found at low frequency in some sub-Saharan Africa peoples.
The article not only misreported the NY Times, it also selectively omitted certain statements such as this: "Even if the new alleles should be shown to improve brain function, that would not necessarily mean that the populations where they are common have any brain-related advantage over those where they are rare."
I have endevoured to correct this biased interpretation of a journalistic source. It appears that the data in question are not really relevant to this section of the article. I would suggest that these data do not belong in this article, they have little or no relevance to any concept of "race". In which "racial" scheme are "Eurasians" considered a "race"? If Eurasians have never been considered a "race", then how can the fact that they share a specific allele in common be relevant to any concept of "race"? Indeed how can any single genetic marker ever be considered a marker for "race"? These genes show the same pattern of distribution as many other genes, they appear to be distributed clinally, am I to infer that African people who happen to have the relevant copy of these genes are considered to be part of an "Eurasian race"? Obviously these genes are not "racial" genetic markers, for no such thing exists, in which case what is the point of mentioning them? Indeed, I don't understand what a section entitled "Modern civilisation and genetics" has to do with an article about "Race and genetics". The concept of "Modern civilisation and genetics" seems best debated with regard to the way genetics was misused by "modern civilisation" in the first half of the twentieth century in order to promote eugenic and racist policies in places like the USA and Germany. Jonathan Marks discusses this in detail in his book "What it means to be 98% chimpanzee", a discussion of genetics with regard to eugenics and racism would be much more apt in this section IMHO. Alun 16:13, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
When it is not possible to partition individuals into a priori samples (or when the basis for doing so is of uncertain validity), it is necessary to use an approach that clusters individuals without reference to sample information. We chose the most widely used clustering program (STRUCTURE) to represent this class of analyses. The authors (Pritchard et al. 2000; Falush et al. 2003) admit that the procedure to estimate the number of populations is ad hoc and recommend that it be used only as a guide, but these caveats are often ignored. Previous assessments of the performance of structure (Evanno et al. 2005) have focused on situations involving strong differentiation. In agreement with those results, we found that structure accurately identified the number of populations when Nm was 5 or lower, mutation was High, and full samples of loci and individuals were used, but performance deteriorated sharply under less ideal conditions (Fig. 7). The complete inability of structure to correctly estimate the true number of populations using Low mutation markers is somewhat surprising but in agreement with previous observation regarding the factors primarily responsible for statistical power to detect population differentiation.
I find it unfathomable that one of the leading Professors of Psychology in the race debate, and author of the groundbreaking book on the matter, ' Race, Evolution and Behavior', Professor Phillipe K. Rushton is not quoted anywhere on the pages on race. Of course, his conclusions are not politically correct so it's little wonder. His sources are entirely legitimate, his approach academic and considered and his education and expertise speak for themselves. He should be cited here and soon, particularly considering the one-sidedness of these articles. Anything that denies racial difference comes with no affidavit, everything that supports it has to be followed by lengthy (and often ineffectual) rebuttals (ref: the sporting differences section, which tries to suggest that lack of African American presence in baseball disproves the suggestion that African Americans have greater muscle mass to bone density ratio and thereby are overrepresented in competitive sports that REQUIRE THESE ATTRIBUTES). This article needs a lot of work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.160.96.237 ( talk) 00:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
All in all there seems to be little or no real anthropological or biological evidence that humans fragment into subspecies based on genetics. Many other organisms that have apparently divergent phenotypes are genetically homogeneous (for example domesticated dogs are very genetically homogeneous, having been domesticated by a few founder events only about 14,000 years ago, though different breeds are obviously phenotypically very diverged, and these breeds are on the whole only about 200 years of age, it shows the discrepancy between physical variation and genetic variation very nicely), on the other hand some populations have been identified as subspecies in the past but have been shown to be genetically very different, recently a new species of elephant was identified in Africa, though there were observable differences between African forest and savanah elephants they had always been classified as subspecies, genetic analysis recently found an FST of 94% between these populations and a new species of elephant was born, we now have Loxodonta africana and Loxodonta cyclotis. [20] The genetic differentiation between leopard species of Asia and Africa has been shown to be far greater than anything seen in humans, with an FST of 36% of variation between populations. Humans do not fragment into subspecies as some other populations of organisms do, and other organisms also appear not to fragment into subspecies based on genetic analysis, even though they had been classified into subspecies previously. On the other hand some populations of organisms are being shown to have a greater degree of genetic variation than previously thought and are starting to be recognised as subspecies. I think it is safe to say that the idea of human "races" being equivalent to subspecies (ie the existence of "biological race") is not accepted by either mainstream anthropology or biology.Members of a subspecies share a unique geographic range or habitat, a group of phylogenetically concordant phenotypic characters, and a unique natural history relative to other subdivisions of the species. Because they are below the species level, different subspecies are reproductively compatible. They will normally be allopatric and they will exhibit recognizable phylogenetic partitioning, because of the time-dependent accumulation of genetic difference in the absence of gene flow. Most subspecies will be monophyletic, however they may also derive from ancestral subspecies hybridization.
(1) That Rushton doesn't apply because he is not a geneticist, and that his work should appear in Race and Intelligence. Nonsense on two counts. First, if you actually care to read his work, you'll realise intelligence is only one of the many differences Rushton observes in racial trends. Many, in fact, most of his observations and statistical analysis point to differences that if nothing else, are related very closely to genetic differences and their expressions in phenotype. Read his R-K reproduction theories for one, as well as cranial, jawbone, bone-density differences etc. How could these possibly be more relevant to an Intelligence rather than Genetic article?
(2) This recurrent and ridiculous argument that because race requires some consideration in terms of definition, that it is somehow redundant as a means of division. Yes, there are elements of cross over and population shifts that muddy the waters in some areas of racial division. And, as per all bell-curves, there will be individuals who defy the norm. Does this mean we throw out the entire means of classification when so many clearly representative trends exist? Of course not. A difficulty in finding a 'dividing line' does not render redundant a general and relevant means of division. For example, in ethics we have difficulty finding a clear 'dividing line' for the point when abortion is morally acceptable, because there is no clear-cut point at which the foetus/child becomes immediately distinguishable. Does this mean we send all those who wear protection during intercourse to prison for murder? Or perhaps we should allow mothers to murder their 5 year old sons? Obviously without a dividing line without any ambiguity whatsoever, the entire means of classification must be redundant, right?
Alun can bury his/her head in the sand all day, and can do so with the best of intentions. Racial difference is a scientific reality. That doesn't make one race better or worse, it just shows that humanity, like all forms of life on earth, is subject to the laws of Darwinian evolution, and that human populations that remained ethnically isolated for thousands of generations did what all species will do over time: ADAPT TO THEIR ENVIRONMENT. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
58.160.96.237 (
talk)
07:43, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
biomedical
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).the user meant mestizo I guess hispanic as anglophoenes can be of any race.
the source says hispanic, does not clarify on race. Muntuwandi 11:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
The intro says it all:
"Racial distinctions are generally made on the basis of skin color, facial features, inferred ancestry, national origin and self-identification. Ongoing debate exists over the merit of the concept of 'race', especially from the perspective of genetics" Lukas19 17:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
regarding Lukas19's edits of 20:05 quoting the Risch article, I did a search of the Risch article using the Adobe acrobat reader's search engine and did not find the term "racial level". This leads me to believe that the quote cited does not exist in the article.
regarding his edits in the section titled "Distribution of genetic variation within/between populations", the version by Wobble is more NPOV.
regarding his edits on Lewontin's fallacy, I reviewed them and found that they did have merit, however not enough as to completely replace Wobble's version. So, I went through both versions and tried to make a compromise between the two.- Psychohistorian 20:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
“ | ..............The existence of such intermediate groups
should not, however, overshadow the fact that the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level. Most recently, Wilson et al. [2] studied 354 individuals from 8 populations deriving from Africa (Bantus, Afro-Caribbeans and Ethiopians), Europe/Mideast (Norwegians, Ashkenazi Jews and Armenians), Asia (Chinese) and Pacific Islands (Papua New Guineans). Their study was based on cluster analysis using 39 microsatellite loci. Consistent with previ- ous studies, they obtained evidence of four clusters repre- senting the major continental (racial) divisions described above as African, Caucasian, Asian, and Pacific Islander. The.......... |
” |
First, there are the usual silly mistakes, similar to the inability to use Acrobat search engine.
"A study called Clines, Clusters, and the Effect of Study Design on the Inference of Human Population Structure and done by Neil Risch, Esteban Burchard, Elad Ziv and Hua Tang, two of them from Stanford University:"
No, that study was done by: Noah A. Rosenberg1*, Saurabh Mahajan2, Sohini Ramachandran3, Chengfeng Zhao4, Jonathan K. Pritchard5, Marcus W. Feldman3
Second, if humans show big DNA differences, it is important and relavant to the article. Because BBC source explicitly says:
"It would seem the assumption that the DNA of any two humans is 99.9% similar in content and identity no longer holds."
Third "size of variation" repeats "Genetic variation at the individual level" WITHOUT counter arguments. Again, blatant bias mixed with limited understandings.
Fourth "But is the variation by geographic origin distinct enough to count as race" includes JUST anti-race arguments. As if the answer to that question is no. Again, blatant bias mixed with limited understandings. Lukas19 00:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
This article should be called "Race and genetics", the title "Genetic views on race" doesn't make any sense to me. Alun 08:08, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Schwael 07:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I already warned about citation of:
""A study called Clines, Clusters, and the Effect of Study Design on the Inference of Human Population Structure and done by Neil Risch, Esteban Burchard, Elad Ziv and Hua Tang, two of them from Stanford University:"
No, that study was done by: Noah A. Rosenberg1*, Saurabh Mahajan2, Sohini Ramachandran3, Chengfeng Zhao4, Jonathan K. Pritchard5, Marcus W. Feldman3"
Now, Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease is also attributed to Noah A. Rosenberg1*, Saurabh Mahajan2, Sohini Ramachandran3, Chengfeng Zhao4, Jonathan K. Pritchard5, Marcus W. Feldman while it was done by: Neil Risch, Esteban Burchard, Elad Ziv and Hua Tang.
So if you cant manage these simple points dont edit the correct form. Lukas19 01:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
This user keeps reverting. After being told 4 times, he finally comprehended that sections "Genetic variation at the individual level" and "size of variation" contain same arguments. (And section "size of variation" didnt contain the counter arguments down in section "Genetic variation at the individual level"). Now his edits put the article AGAIN repeating arguments. For ex:
Section: "But is the variation by geographic origin distinct enough to count as race"
"While geographical origin can be inferred from genetics, observed geographically distributed human genetic variation does not amount to the sort of discontinuous distribution that would be expected if the human population were descended from distinct lineages, neither is the variation great enough for human populations to be considered subspecies, the usual biological synonym for race.[7]"
Just down, section "Do biologically distinct races exist?"
Race is generally used as a synonym for subspecies, which traditionally is a geographically circumscribed, genetically differentiated population. Sometimes traits show independent patterns of geographical variation such that some combination will distinguish most populations from all others. To avoid making "race" the equivalent of a local population, minimal thresholds of differentiation are imposed. Human "races" are below the thresholds used in other species, so valid traditional subspecies do not exist in humans. A "subspecies" can also be defined as a distinct evolutionary lineage within a species. Genetic surveys and the analyses of DNA haplotype trees show that human "races" are not distinct lineages, and that this is not due to recent admixture; human races are not and never were "pure". Instead, human evolution has been and is characterised by many locally differentiated populations coexisting at any given time, but with sufficient genetic contact to make all humanity a single lineage sharing a common evolutionary fate. [2]
Both uses same sources. One summarizes and one full quote. Again Leroi's arguments are repeated. If people will insist on reverting more than 10 times, the least they could do would be not to do such a crappy job... Lukas19 23:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is way too personal for you, being involved in this topic in real life. You keep pushing your own unique POV, Alun, but don't you stop to think that others deserve to be heard? Why, in the thick of all the debate, are your beliefs centrally important to the discussion, as unassailable? Savignac 08:51, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Well the thing is, I don't think he is any different than they. He is just as abrasive and lets loose on other people. I have never seen him apologize to those he is in philosophical disagreement with, because he is "right no matter what". Savignac 09:19, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
You write more polite than you act, but then again, it is condescending, with the pretense that you are in the right philosophically, simply because you ass-kiss the establishment that lets you spew your acid theories, while attacking another type of establishement that is in real life. So Wikipedia is your venue to disperse racist science. I get that. It's your thing. It's not mine. Your personal user page and edit history are justification for my scrutiny of your involvement in this array of topics. You are always taking sides; I just want no triumphalism, no "seal of infallible approval" being appended to make it truer than true, because I am not a True Believer and no matter what conviction you have in these matters, it doesn't give you a right to violate WP:POINT, even if the WP:BIAS is entirely in your favor. Wikipedia editors do not represent the average sort of citizen, but the intelligentsia and their quirky POVs. Savignac 09:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
BTW Jeeny...if these types of situations always seem to be associated with User:Wobble, regardless of the many other people involved at odd times (but always him), then why wouldn't anybody suspect him of being at least partially at fault for this misery of his that loves company? That's naive. Savignac 12:54, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
The crackpot views of Wikipedians who break WP:POINT day in and day out, to preach the "truth" to passing readers, do not need to be heard, or acknowledged as influential. You may believe in memetic propagandization, but that's your problem. Savignac 21:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Who is naive to believe that there is no academic racism taking place? Savignac 17:56, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
You can have this mind game to yourself. Savignac 04:43, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay; mindless pedantics. Spin in circles on your own. Savignac 05:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
It's pedantic, because it swims in theoretical circles and comes to no factual conclusion. Relativism prevents a completely accurate picture, especially with the preconceptions, unconscious or otherwise, in those connected to the study. People rely on inferences and their personal filters to decide what to believe. In any case, if you reply again, I will not continue on my part. Savignac 05:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Back to the point. This section was added by
User:Lukas19 on the 10th of January, so ten months or so ago. Since then Lukas19 has been banned for one year by
Arbcom and his suspected
sockpuppets
User:KarenAE and
User:KarenAER have also been blocked indefinately, which extends Lukas19's block. His concern over my reverts is hardly relevant ten months after the event. The article has been comprehensively rewritten in in the meantime, and not by me. Muntuwandi has totally transformed the article, and though I cannot claim to be a fan of the changes he has made, I can acknowledge that he has made it more accessible, it was probably overly technical before his changes.
[3] Though I note that Dbachmann has expressed some concern that the article has strayed off topic, a concern I share.
[4] So this section is regarding some specific changes that were made ten months ago and which are not remotely relevant to the current article. Furthermore although I am not a big fan of the changes Muntuwandi has made, I have not attempted to move the article back towards my preferred version, something Savignac has stated that I am constantly guilty of.
[5] So you see I am perfectly happy with compromise, as long as an editor can support their edits with reliable sources fairly. The inclusion of personal opinion is specifically against the three most important Wikipeda policies, which is why we should all, always have a zero tolerance approach to the inclusion of original research. Unless Savignac has something specific to say about the article an about the changes made ten moths ago, then I see no reason to be having this surreal and irrelevant discussion. This page is not here to discuss Savignac's personal opinion about the state of science (something he appears to know very little about) or about his opinions of me personally (I really do not care what he thinks about me). I suspect Savignac of being a sockpuppet of
User:Fourdee due to his very similar talk page style of attacking other editors (especially his tendency to describe editors who challenge him as having a pov to push and of not being neutral), his description of science and scientists as being biased and fabricating results when it does not support his personal opinions, rather than him simply providing the reliable sources he has been asked for, his queer opinions about "race", and the fact that he clearly knows his way around Wikipedia, and is therefore probably not the newbie he claims to be.
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
Alun
07:28, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay; I'll take Fourdee as a nice pseudonym...though I'm not sure that identity has had any sexual misunderstanding with User:deeceevoice, or Jeeny? or otherwise with other color-afflicted folks such as yourself, as well as with people all over the map, from Mediterraneanists to Nordicists. I take arrogance from all rich, fat fucks, but I don't give it to the poor, vanquished souls under your elite, anti-God, goose-stepping abolitionism. I'm everybody to everyone. I'm your perfect, raceless chameleon. Savignac 08:18, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I have removed the following text
There are variety of ways in which 'race' is used in biological literature. <ref>Pigliucci ''et al.'' (2003)</ref>
because this citation does not occur in the references list, so how can anyone heck it claims this? I have asked Lukas before to learn how to cite sources properly, ther eis still a source cited by a single URL link in the article, this needs to be dealt with by Lukas or I will remove it. Alun 07:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
There are many severe problems with this article that deserve mention. However, due to the nature of despotic supervisors, politics and the general instability that comes with being in a deadend situation (if it's not possible to agree on something like mathematical truth, then it sure as hell ain't possible to agree on the nature of human origins), I shall not criticise the whole of this article. Here are some points : 1) NO MATHS. Nowhere. There's *mention* of mathematics. But not one equation. Nowhere. That one observation attests more weight to the validity of this 'science' than all the others put together probably would. Do the math, or don't bother writing the article. 'Mentioning' Principal Component Analysis Sounds all respectable (in the same way that 'collateral damage' makes 'massacre' sound a little less harsh), but what does the term mean? Answer, you the reader can't know as they haven't been shown the workings (even if they had, they would probably pick up on the lack of 'rigour' in some of the statistical issues that are bought up (the philosophy of statistics being what it is).
2) The "This genetic distance map was made in 2007 using statistical Euclidean distance.[33]" remark is interesting - how is such a distance defined (in a reasonable and non-nonsensical way given that *so little* is still known about DNA and how it is that introns and exons fold, meander and generally dance in a way that would make Torvell and Dean look like amateurs when expressing proteins? How does *any* definition of distance make sense, let along a *linear* or 'well-behaved' notion such as Euclidean distance? Even if such a notion of distance did make sense - it wouldn't make much sense (though, again, I would have to do the maths before being capable of proving that Euclidean metrics are not curvilinear enough to do the job of describing distance - now *I'm* speaking nonsense). I'm willing to accept the validity of this reference, or whatever you call it - but it needs better explanation if this is to be done.
3) " genetic distance matrix among the 26 population samples, based on 29 polymorphic genes with 121 alleles." This remark, from Jensen, is interesting - what on earth does it mean? How are such 'genetic distance matrices' formed? Given the importance of what is being spoken about here, I would hope that all the necessary statistical theorems have been tied together using some Proof checking utilities, otherwise, well, you would be basing your conclusions on bad mathematical models (ie: you'd probably be wrong). Clearly, there is room for statistics here, which, given the amount of statistical errors that social scientists (and scientists and mathematicians) are in general prone towards making, is quite troubling given that which is being claimed.
4) General lack of a 'method' or lack of access to experimental data : It is my opinion that a graph, picture, or, indeed, a paper is not worth publishing unless all the details associated with how it was generated have been published online with it, together with useful software and tools needed to process that information.
I've rambled too long on some subjects that I don't fully understand (the point I'm making here is that I'm guessing quite a few other people publishing this stuff don't understand it that well either).
Please correct me if I'm wrong, or if you misunderstand my comments. MrASingh 23:03, 14 Feb 2006 (UTC)
Clearly, I could rant on forever here... [User:MrASingh|MrASingh]] 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Regarding this edit. It is factually incorrect to claim that "Not a small proportion according to Edwards. ". Edwards does not dispute the fact that the differences are small. He disputes that this observation automatically leads to the conclusion that "race" is not a biological construct. Edwards argument is not that Lewonin's statistical analysis is wrong, nor that variation is not small, his argument is that what is important is how the small variation is structured when it comes to determining if races are biological or not.
These conclusions are based on the old statistical fallacy of analysing data on the assumption that it contains no information beyond that revealed on a locus-by-locus analysis, and then drawing conclusions solely on the results of such an analysis. The ‘taxonomic significance’ of genetic data in fact often arises from correlations amongst the different loci, for it is these that may contain the information which enables a stable classification to be uncovered.....There is nothing wrong with Lewontin’s statistical analysis of variation, only with the belief that it is relevant to classification. Human genetic diversity: Lewontin’s fallacy A.W.F. Edwards
Long and Kittles paper Human Genetic Diversity and the Nonexistence of Biological Races is more informative. Here they claim that FST is only relevant when calculated on a population by population basis. They conclude that
a great deal of genetic variation within groups is consistent with each of these [race] concepts. However, none of the race concepts is compatible with the patterns of variation revealed by our analyses.
They think that none of the current concepts of race are consistent with their observations, because their best fit model for human population structure does not conform to any of the proposed models. They do not claim that this invalidates the concept of biological "race", just that for humans this concept needs to be defined in such a way as to explain the observed diversity and population structure, and no current concepts do this. Their main criticism of Lewonin is that he assumes that all populations are independent, and that all populations are equally distant from each other, whereas in reality many human populations represent sub-sets of other populations, for example all out of Africa populations are sub-sets of the ancient African population. They claim that their observations support this. Alun 08:17, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I have had a bit of a reorganisation. I have tried to avoid changing the meanings or emphasis of any section. Please be assured that any section that seems to stress one point of view over another, when it didn't before is purely due to oversight on my part. I did not come intending to make such a large change, but I fond that many sections repeated other sections, and certain sections needed to be merged into other sections, I am assuming this is due to the fact that this article is essentially made up from three previous articles. The main things I have done are to try and rationalise the article, as it makes sense to me. Therefore sections that appeared to be discussing the validity of "race" as a concept I have moved to the section "Do Biologically Distinct Races Exist?", etc. Edward's criticism of Lewontin occured in several places, I have put it in the "Genetic variation and human populations", it is especially relevant to the "Multilocus Allele Clusters" sub-section as this is the crux of his argument. I have also had a go at explaining this argument, Edwards argument is excellent, and exlains why the use of multiple loci is effective very well. Further I have removed two extensive paragraphs, not because there was anything wrong with them per se, but because as I was reading them I got the impression that they were identical to something else I had read just recently. Sure enough they were directly copied from athe paper The Use of Racial, Ethnic, and Ancestral Categories in Human Genetics Research, by the Race, Ethnicity, and Genetics Working Group, National Human Genome Research Institute, Am. J. Hum. Genet. 77:000–000, 2005. This is obviously plagiarism and is not allowed, these sections were unatributed, and even if they had been they represented far too long sections to be compliant with WP:QUOTE. I'm now going to have a go at making a graphic to explain how multi-locus clusters work, I'll base it on Edward's example. Hope I have not troden on anyones toes here, it really was only meant as a bit of reorganisation, if I have inadvertantly removed important info, please understand this was not my intent. Alun 16:21, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I've made some diagrams, I don't know how clear they are.
Are these figures of any value for explaining the advantage of using multi locus allele clusters? Do they explain what Edwards is getting at in his essay? Sometimes a diagram can explain concepts better than words, but sometimes they can be confusing. These diagrams make sense to me, I'd like to include them. Some constructive comments would be nice. Alun 18:43, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Multi-Locus Allele Clusters
|
OK, I've made an infobox, thought it might be good to have a single place where this concept could be explained. Any thoughts? I'm going to put it into the article. Feel free to make changes and discuss how it can be improved. Alun 18:35, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
and this from Tishkoff and KiddThe Big Few races can seem real in samples of size N (Norway, Nigeria, Nippon, Navajo). That is, if one examines only the geographic extremes, differences appear large because they can be seen in comparisons between graphic and tree-like presentations of the same data. In that sense it is sometimes said that there are only four or five major patterns of variation. But if we look at geographically closer or intermediate populations, differences diminish roughly proportionately. Even our view of the Big Few might change were it not for our curious convenience of overlooking places such as India. Who are those pesky billion? One race? A mix of the other already-sampled races? A multiplicity of races, as has often been suggested? [12]
This is more or less what the infobox actually says, except that the infobox doesn't talk about race, because it is about a method, not a concept. Besides which, this is not a comment on the validity of the statistics or method, it is a comment on sampling errors, all statistical analyses are contingent on non biased sampling methods, it is also true that in genetic studies there is a bias in sampling, the vast majority of samples are taken from Europeans, the descendants of Europeans and the North American population, look at any of the papers and it is obvious this is true. It is also obvious that regions like Africa (which, let's face it is appallingly under represented given it's greater genetic diversity) and India usually only have small segments of their populations sampled, but to get a good unbiased sampling there should be more sampling from different geographic areas in these regions. This is just my opinion, but I doubt that any geneticist worth their salt would disagree, the more samples from as diverse a population as possible would be the aim of all people associated with this field. Alun 13:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)Although the amount of genetic diversity between populations is relatively small compared with the amount of genetic diversity within populations, populations usually cluster by geographic region based on genetic distance (Fig. 4). Rosenberg et al.43 analyzed 377 microsatellites genotyped in 52 global populations using a clustering algorithm (STRUCTURE45) to assign individuals to subgroups (clusters) that have distinctive allele frequencies. They could distinguish five main clusters of individuals that corresponded to broad geographic regions (Africa, Middle East and Europe, Asia, Oceania, Americas). They identified a sixth cluster specific to a Pakistani population, which probably reflects high levels of inbreeding and genetic drift in that group. Without reference to sampling location, individuals from the same predefined population nearly always shared membership in one of the five main clusters. There were some exceptions, however, for populations from geographically intermediate regions (e.g., Central Asia, the Middle East), in which individuals had partial membership in multiple clusters, especially those of flanking geographic regions, indicating a continuous gradient of variation among some regions. Thus, although the main clusters correlate with the common concept of 'races' (as expected, because populations from different parts of the world have larger differences in allele frequencies than populations from the same region of the world), the analyses by STRUCTURE do not support discrete boundaries between races. [13]
"Human genetic variation can be used to deduce the geographical origins of an individual's recent ancestors, this is possible because a small proportion of human genetic variation is geographically distributed"
Whether only a small proportion of human genetic variation is geo distributed or not is disputed. This is discussed in "Multilocus Allele Clusters" section:
"Since the 1980s it has been known that human genetic variation is low relative to other species, this is usually attributed to the recent origins of our species, and tends to support the recent single-origin hypothesis (or Out of Africa). [3] It has also been claimed that most of this small variation is distributed at the individual and local level (about 90-94%), with the remaining 6-10% distributed at the continental (or racial) level. [4] This observation has been used to argue that racial classifications are not valid when within group variation exceeds between group variation. [5]
A. W. F. Edwards claimed in 2003 that such conclusions are unwarranted because the argument ignores the fact that most of the information that distinguishes populations is hidden in the correlation structure of the data and not simply in the variation of the individual factors. [6] While it makes Lewontin's argument unwarranted, Edward's paper does not address the existence or absence of human race, see Lewontin's Fallacy.
Also, it has been argued that the calculation of within group and between group diversity has violated certain assumptions regarding human genetic variation. Calculation of this variation is known as FST and Long and Kittles (2003) have questioned the validity of this reproducible statistic....... "
So the method of calculation is disputed. That also means that numerical results are also disputed since different methods may yield to different answers. Hence it is disputed that only a small proportion of human genetic variation is geo distributed. Indeed, Edwards accuses popular articles:
"In popular articles that play down the genetical differences among human populations..." and goes on "...It is not true that ‘‘racial classification is .. . of virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance’’. It is not true, as Nature claimed, that ‘‘two random individuals from any one group are almost as different as any two random individuals from the entire world’’, and it is not true, as the New Scientist
claimed, that ‘‘two individuals are different because they are individuals, not because they belong to different races’’ and that ‘‘you can’t predict someone’s race by their genes’’. Such
statements might only be true if all the characters studied were
independent, which they are not."
So it is POV to include "small" there. If people insist, we can repeat the debate in "Multilocus Allele Clusters" section but that would be stupid given the size of the article. An alternative would be to say that that "small variation" conclusion is found by locus by locus analysis, as apposed to a more comprehensive analysis which would find the correlations and hence yield a different number. Lukas19 03:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Your quotes of Edwards above regarding popular articles are irrelevant, none of the quotes deals with variation, only with classification. That's kind of the point he's making, that humans can be classified into different groups, even though variation is mainly at the individual level, with only a small amount at the population level. Edwards comments are quite correct, but they do not support your assertion that there is a dispute about the variation mainly existing at the within group level, and he clearly does not make this claim. Please provide evidence that most variation is not distributed at the within population level, because neither Long and Kittles, nor Edwards dispute this and it is incorrect to claim that they do. This fact has been reproduced hundreds of times, and I do not believe that any reputable geneticists disputed it. I have tried to explain in the infobox how multiple loci can contribute to classification, it is clear in the infobox that although variation remains constant between Population I and Population II, it is easier to assign an individual to either population based on three loci instead of one. This is due to the cumulative effect of the loci, not due to a lowering of variation. Alun 06:38, 6 March 2007 (UTC)With k loci, therefore, the distance between two individuals from the same population will be binomial with mean k(p2þq2) and variance k(p2þq2)(1�p2�q2) and if from different populations binomial with mean 2kpq and variance 2kpq(1 2pq). These variances are, of course, the same. [15]
mean kp in population 1 and kq in population 2, with variance kpq in both cases. Continuing with the former gene frequencies and taking k ¼ 100 loci (say), the mean numbers are 30 and 70 respectively, with variances 21 and thus standard deviations of 4.58. With a difference between the means of 40 and a common standard deviation of less than 4.6, there is virtually no overlap between the distributions, and the probability of misclassification is infinitesimal, simply on the basis of counting the number of ‘þ’ genes. Fig. 1 shows how the probability falls off for up to 20 loci."
About the modified form, statements, "this is possible even though most human genetic variation occurs within sub-populations and not between sub-populations" and "therefore close geographical proximity strongly correlates with genetic similarity" seem contradictory so we need to explain those terms; ie: genetic variation and genetic similarity Lukas19 17:31, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
We need some clean up Lukas19 03:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I have made several proposals and am happy to discuss more if anyone has any other ideas.
Alun
14:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Genetics for the human race lots of papers and reviews. Good resource. There was a symposium at Howard University as well, sponsored I think by Nature. Alun 19:17, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
The vast majority of scientists state that : "common racial classifications are insufficient, inaccurate, or biologically meaningless." Thus, writing that "Some scientists argue that common racial classifications are insufficient, inaccurate, or biologically meaningless." is giving undue weight to fringe theories. This is not acceptable, even less on such a sensitive subject where people are looking for what modern science has to say concerning this problem. This article needs expert attention from a mainstream scientist. Tazmaniacs 23:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
this article needs a major clean up and reorganization. a lot of stuff is repeated. I think we need a defninite split into a for and against camp of scientists and their respective views.
Muntuwandi
23:55, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I think this section should be delected. It is mostly a collection of various quotes. Most of the arguments have already been presented in earlier section, so it adds nothing new but takes up unnecessary space. Muntuwandi 17:51, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
The articles are discussing the same issues thus they should be merged. The title of Human genetic variation sounds less controversial. Muntuwandi 16:34, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Aires, Argentina, Using Uniparentally and Biparentally Inherited Genetic Markers]
This is a peer reviewed scientific journal that published these facts. Muntuwandi 19:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism site and gene-watch.org spefically says these Genetic testings are faulty at best. I have proven that they are not reiable therefore I am removing it. Unless you can find an arugement against whwat the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism is doing which I dought. XGustaX 19:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
XGustaX i read the article on Genetic Markers Not a Valid Test of Native Identity. this article does not contradict any of the findings. This article is against using DNA testing for tribal affiliation
So it does not dispute that mtDNA studies can be used for ancestry purposes. Muntuwandi 19:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
No, It states that DNA testing AT ALL cannot determine both tribal and ancestrial origins. Read the article carfully.
XGustaX 19:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Are you saying that all the studies based Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups are useless. Muntuwandi 20:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
No, of course not. But For Native Americans they are as the Article explains that is why I removed only the Native American part.
XGustaX
20:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
If someone has a maternal ancestor who is native american it will show up in your mtDNA. At the moment this is not disputed. The whole study of mtDNA, the single origin hypothesis, historic migrations are all based on mtDNA. At the moment the study is on solid foundation. The council you are talking about is against testing Native americans but it is not talking about the caucasian population who have native american ancestry.
"the concept of using genetic tests to prove Native American ancestry is of relatively recent origin, but there are many problems with it. Perhaps foremost of these problems is that to make a genetic test the arbiter of whether someone is Native American is to give up a tribe’s sovereign ability to determine its own membership and relations."
The reason why is because even native americans are admixed so someone might say you do not have membership rights because you have european ancestry. They argue that it is cultural identity that is important. I recognize the problem with admixture testing of Native americans for this purpose but when it comes to the caucasian population, it makes no mention of its use.
This is not just about Native americans. Even white americans have african or native ancestry. And blacks have european and native ancestry. The above study is a peer reviewed scientific journal. when it comes to reputable sources, they do not get much more reputable. Maybe you are uncomfortable that someone found that 45% of Argentines have Native american mtdna. but that is what the study found. Muntuwandi 20:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC) Muntuwandi 20:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
You are misreading the article then because it clearly says mtDNA and Y-Chromosomal DNA testing are both inaccurate. The whole single origin is obviously flawed as the article points that out very very clearly.
Yes the article does touch upon trible indeity but it touches on how people use DNA testing to prove whether or not they are part Native american and this is just reiable because all the "Native American Markers" are actually found all over the world Including in Southern Europeans which is were most Argentines are from for example. You do not know me so please do not say I am not uncomfortable with the idea. When it seems you are the one dragging this conversation on and on. XGustaX 20:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, It is indeed. XGustaX 14:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
The reason is that if we believe their study then all mtDNA and Y-Chromosomal DNA testing is inaccurate. Yet we know this is not true because people are publishing journals According to the single origin hypothesis, native americans arrived from asia between 10000 and 33000 years ago. This was enough time for distinctive DNA markers to accumulate in them to distinguish native americans from all other populations. Yes some of the haplogroups or markers are found in other populations but the whole point of genetic testing is to find what is unique not what is the same. since humans are all very similar we share most of our DNA. What differs is what can be used to determine our ancestry. Are you saying it is impossible to test Native american DNA. At the moment the specific study cited is valid. I will agree to remove it if you find a specific source that says this peer reviewed study is invalid. Muntuwandi 20:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Again I am not saying it is impossible just very very unreiable. This source as well as the other one both say they are for example it says the DYS199 or , M3 as it is known, was tested however, (M3 or DYS199) is found in Southern Europeans as well. That is what i was spefically refering to, that totally disproves the peer reviewed study. In fact Unless you can disprove both sites by actually saying so the sources stand. Since both sources state very clearly these people who are publishing journals are working from a theory and nothing else. They have however, disproven the theory because they have found that these unique Native American markers are not unique to Native Americans at all. People all over the world including Europeans have these markers? There point is does this make them Native Americans? No of course not. The article if you read it which it seems you havn't yet has dsiproven the single origin hypothesis has been disproven by doing various other studies on other populations around the world. In other words the sources stand. They even state how scieniest stick to this theory too much and the assert that there are Native American Markers when in reality there are not. Again read the article because you havn't read it clearly otherwise why would I waste my time citing sources that inst totally against it. Again if you find a way to discredit these Native American organizations in some way by some sort of press release I will agree to put the information back but the sources stand strongly, since none of your sources do. XGustaX 20:40, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
No, Wikipedia also has a policy where only new and relevant information can be present (unless part of the a history section for example, Carlton S. Coon.) since this is a new study and since this does disprove much what the theory thought, We will have to remove it. I will add a section in the article about how testing for Native American ancestry cannot be so easily proven and it is very very diffcult to do so, unlike other "races". The source stands unless you can find something against it that isnt what they are talking about. It is indeed a peer reviewed journal since it is by experts, if it is not please prove it with sources other wise. Due to Wikipedia's rules we must leave it out. You keep saying that I think or the source thinks mtDNA or y chromosomal are wrong. That is not the case they are speficially saying so for Native Americans it is so. For Africans and other "races" you are right I have found none. Since None of your sources disprove what that Biocolonism is wrong or The Council for Responible Genetics both experts in their fields,then we will have to keep it this way.
XGustaX
21:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
To you it may seem logical but it has been disproven indeed. Now if you want to keep this up we can but I have sources saying other wise and you well you do not. I think it is funny that you have tried to shoot that theses sources as much as possible you need to learn to be sercue just because you do not like something Muntuwandi. XGustaX 05:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
If you want to include your source I have no problem, I will not remove it because that is what wikipedia is all about, unless you think your source is not good enough. let us put both your source and my source as a compromise. Muntuwandi 02:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
No, I am sorry Muntuwandi. There are many sciencist that do not agree with Native American testing and I think it is Racist to include that into the article! I will not stand by racism on this article. The article is about Race and Genetics it should be well known that Native American testing has it flaws but some sciencist still fail to see its flaws. This should be included. I have made a compromise with you to including the African DNA information which I think is fair.
XGustaX
02:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
No it is not just like how do not accept the skull pictures, even though they are based on complete science no. I completly agree with you on the skull issue by the way. I do not accpet this treatment of Native Americans, not only that it against WP:RS to included outdated information unless its a part of a history section. I personally will not support Racism. XGustaX 02:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
What racism, white americans have their admixture tested, african americans have their admixture tested, brazilians regularly test admixture, why is it racist when it comes to argentina, what makes argentina different from all the other cases. Muntuwandi 02:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't talking about just Argentina as you can see I removed EVERYTHING about Native Americans DNA testing. The article mentions all Native American DNA testing. It is racist to say a certain group of people are mixed when it is known the World is mixed. We all come from Africa. It is just like you and the Skull Pictures you do not support them because they label people, right? XGustaX 02:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
This is not labelling it is admixture, if we say african americans have some european ancestry, is it racist. Is it racist to say many white americans have black ancestry no. It is a political issue when tribal membership uses dna to decide, for purposes such as funding or affirmative action. but just to study history and genealogy it is not.
your article was published in 2001
After your article was published people continue to study mtDNA. the source i intend to add is from 2004, long after your critique. So it means your critique is outdated. Muntuwandi 03:10, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes it is labeling Muntuwandi is pointing out other people due to racial mixture and I will stand for it, since we are all mixed. The article explains that too if you read it. It states that some sciencist assert those claims. However since this is a newer study and as well known to many sciencist especially ones from other countries it is not well known of course. There for it is valid explaining how other information is indeed outdated. That is what I keep saying, and since this true since many have published this article over including the Council for Responiable Genetics and other organizations. XGustaX 03:16, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Your source is outdated from 2001, and the source i intend to add is from 2004. So what is your excuse? Muntuwandi 03:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't matter when it was published, infact because it was published later just proves their whole point even more. I just explained why, many scientist are still using the "native American markers". The article explains that too if you read it. It states that some sciencist assert those claims however all Native American Markers are present in other populations all around the world.
XGustaX
03:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Your study is not new. In fact everything they are mentioning is already known. Your source says haplogroub b is not a good indicator of Native american ancestry because it is found in asia. But that is already known, see Haplogroup B (mtDNA). You have to understand the difference between an haplotype and a haplogroup. A haplogroup is a collection of several haplotypes. Haplogroup B (mtDNA) will be family of certain haplotypes, but some haplotypes will be specific to native americans and others to Asians because asians and native americans split at least 11000 years ago.
For example all non Africans are part of the super haplogroup l3. but they are then divided in to sub-haplogroups. Europeans are a daughter haplogroup of L3 which is N. and so on. So the concept of saying haplogroub b cannot be used as an indicator for native american ancestry is an oversimplification. Because there are sub haplogroups B1 and B2 which are only specific to native americans. That is why your source is political, it is just trying to poke holes in the science to avoid testing people for native american ancestry and instead use self identification or tribal affiliation. It is not my wish to get into that debate. my main interest is reconstructing history. Muntuwandi 04:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
your article mentions false negatives, well in this case they are not testing native americans so a false negative on a caucasian will reduce his or her admixture. That means that the caucasian could in fact have more amerindian admixture. Muntuwandi 04:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I have explained to you a thousand times already, the tribal part and political aspects are just parts of the article. It is not the whole arugment, What don't you understand about this?The article explains a vast amount problems with Native American testing. The article mentions false negatives just like it mentions false positives, because it talking in board sense for people trying to prove or not whether they are or not at least part Native American. Yes you are right, that is another reason it is not reiable to test whether someone is native american or not. XGustaX 04:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
why don't you include your source and i will include mine. If your intentions are in good faith you should agree to this. I am willing to compromise so that you can include your source but you are unwilling to compromise and include my source, that is what I do not understand. I beleive your source to be political not about science but I am willing to compromise and include it. But you on the other hand are about removing cited information that is from a reliable source. You do not wish to get into that debate but here you are... Muntuwandi 04:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
It is not Political, How is Jonthan Marks a expert in molecular anthropology, evolutionary theory, history, human genetics, and sociology and philosophy of science. Doing a Political paper? He clearly states his science and Brett Lee Shelton clearly states the Political side of the issue. You keep saying this but you fail to see all this infront of you. My intentions are in good faith but having outdated material is forbidden. There fore we can debate this all night and week, but the source clearly shows how there science is flawed even giving the genes they used and HOW they are flawed. You should assume good faith, because I am simply trying to make the article better on a subject that is not too well known apparently. You said you did not want to get into this debate but then again here you are... XGustaX 04:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
You are being unreasonable your article is from 2001 and mine is from 2004, how can that be outdated. Muntuwandi 04:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Unreasonable? You are the one who wont let anyone edit the article. I am sorry I wasnt aware you were the dicator of this page. The Publishing date doesnt matter the information revealed in this article is newer then the what sciencist thought they were "Native American Markers"
.
XGustaX
04:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
making stuff up Muntuwandi 04:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Making stuff up? You are being unreasonable. You are not letting anyone edit this page and Yes the article point these things out serveal times. XGustaX 04:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Like I said let us include both sources and let any readers decide for themselves. Muntuwandi 04:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Like I said no, when it comes to science newer discoveries need to be replaced. XGustaX 04:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC) I extend a hand of compromise and you have not accepted Muntuwandi 04:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
This is not about Compromising this is about following the rules of Wikipedia in science related issues. XGustaX 04:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Why don't you include that some scientists believe that it is not possible to test for native american ancestry using mtdna because of ABC. Muntuwandi 05:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I will, I am going to write up a lengthy section about this, however since this section will be added it will no longer follow the rules of Wikipedia since this is a science related matter not a historical related matter.
XGustaX
05:03, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Thats fine with me as long as it is WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. Muntuwandi 05:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, That is all because we will have to remove the testing as it will not follow Wikipedia's rules once I add this section into the article. I am glad we could to agreement that is all I wanted. If you would like check back tomorrow to check for the sections WP:NPOV and everything will be cited from the article. Fair enough. XGustaX 05:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
We need to present both sides of the story, that is NPOV. Muntuwandi 05:19, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
We can't in this case, since this is a science related issue we have to get newer discoveries. If this issue were however a historical issue for example then you are right. XGustaX 05:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
even in science disputes arise. but the newer studies are the sources I have included. I can even provide sources from this year 2007 involving native american mtDNA Muntuwandi 05:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
No, since this issue is science based, since this falls under the WP:NPOV section of:
favoring a scientist, inventor, or theory for a non-scientific reason."
Since it falls under this, we cannot. This is for scientific reasons. As I have said earlier it does not matter what date it is from but whether or not the source uses newer knowleage about "Native American Markers" and there reliability. Since the article makes mention of this too. XGustaX 05:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
don't forget to add your source Muntuwandi 13:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I will. This is not my point of view as I said, I am following the section from stated above. This is what we have to do. XGustaX 13:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I said we should compromise you include your statement criticizing the sources I have added. This is not communist era where you censor information that you do not like. Muntuwandi 13:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Did I ever say that? No... If that was the case, which is not, look whos talking. You are the one who doesnt like the skull pictures. Do not sound like a hypercrite Muntuwandi ok.
XGustaX
13:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
yes I do not like the skull picture because they are oversimplified. I am very interested in skulls but the topic is too deep that you cannot use 3 skulls to be representative of 6 billion people. I said that there is more information needed in the craniofacial anthropometry regarding skulls. I do not mind even using real pictures instead of drawings. Muntuwandi 13:50, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, so could I not say the same thing about these markers? These "markers" are only very few and they also oversimplify people. These "markers" are found in other people around especially. We are all mixed just like we are all different features for example with the skulls. XGustaX 13:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
your source has got some useful information about tribal identity, it is not very scientific but it is useful. your source mentions haplogroup b but it does not mention b1 and b2 which are specific to native americans. Muntuwandi 14:04, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
It mentions B because B is both B1 and B2,Just like M3 or DYS199 is named M3 but you can use either name you use B1 and B2 to spefic but B when you are talking about both and since they are both "Native American markers", comon now... Do we have to discuss this again Muntuwandi. How many times must we discuss this there is a lot of science in this article if you dont want to see thats your problem, but it just proves my point even more of you being a hypercrite. XGustaX 14:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I would too. I want this to work out. How about this for a compromise. We leave the African DNA tests and remove the Native American ones. Since we can't seem to both want to keep the article the extact way we want. That way we both win, We both get to keep a part of the article that we like. XGustaX 17:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
thats where I can see that your intentions are not honorable. You do not mind talking about african admixture but because you have seen that your beloved argentina has not been studied for african admixture. Muntuwandi 02:12, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
No Muntuwandi, please believe me when I say this. I really want us to reach an compromise tonight. If you need to be conviced further please read your talk page. I am being honest. Can we agree on this compromise? I think its fair. XGustaX 02:23, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
the compromise that I can offer is for you to find scholarly and peer reviewed scientific journals that dispute genetic testing for Native american ancestry or admixture. I searched for these articles making sure that they were reliably sourced, only for someone to say that they do not like them with no satisfactory explanation and causing an unnecessary and childish edit war. Do I really need to convince anyone that the world is round and not flat in 2007. the only reason why you are able to cause this much trouble is simply because most editors to this article are inactive at the moment. but any responsible wikipedian does not censor reputable information simply because they do not like it. what you do is dig up counter sources. There are people who have written books and articles that some would consider racist such as Arthur Jensen or J. Philippe Rushton but we do not delete their articles even though most of us do not like what they have written. Its not wikipedia policy to give personal advice, but please GROW UP!!!!! Muntuwandi 02:49, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, but that is not the case, I do not want it deleted just because I do not like it. We do not delete there articles because those people you mentioned are noblitity and can be included. Which is a totally different reason then we have hear. Look we need to compromise and I am really trying to, as I have said before many times this is written by experts and it is well known by many sciencist, I do not want to debate this any longer. I am saying as a compromise we include the African DNA studies but leave out the Native American studies. We are suppose to be compromising and not aruging as we have done for the last two days, I think this is best compromise we both get something we want but we have to sacrifice something as well. XGustaX 02:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
White Latin American says
The evolution of Latin America's modern population is embedded in a long and widespread history of intermixing between Europeans, Amerindians and sub-Saharan Africans, and racial categories are more so a social construct there than in other parts of the world. Consequently, many White Latin Americans have a degree of Amerindian and/or sub-Saharan African ancestry.
all this study is putting some numbers to this. it is widely known and accepted. Muntuwandi 03:13, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I would be ok with that with that statement. However, We need to compromise and I am willing, since we compromising which means we both need loose something in order to make the article better. Like I said before I am willing to keep the African DNA and remove the Native American ones. It is not because I do not like them but because I have no clear sources against African DNA studies. Thats how a compromise works. XGustaX 03:18, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Thank you Patrick. It is very interesting, it just comes to show races are indeed as you said a fuzzy area. XGustaX 14:04, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
There are numerous problems with using genetics to determine whether or not one has Native American ancestry, and/or alternatively to determine tribal membership. The most obvious problem is that being Native American is a question of politics and culture, not biology: one is Native American if one is recognized by a tribe as being a member. And one is not necessarily a member of a tribe simply because one has Native American ancestors.
this is a political debate Muntuwandi 11:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
It says Very Very Clearly There are numerous problems with using genetics to determine whether or not one has NATIVE AMERICAN ANCESTRY, AND/OR ALTERNATIVELY TO DETERMINE TRIBAL MEMEBERSHIP. Basically saying that using Genetics to prove Native American ancestry or/and tribial memebership or to test if your part of certain tribe is flawed. They mention this all through out the article, talking about both whether you are to be accepted as part of a tribe or just to be tested for ancestry. Later on in the article it talks more about problems with testing for Native American ancestry using DNA testing. I do not see it getting any clearer. We are suppose to be compromising or else we both could get blocked ,but we cant come to compromise? XGustaX 13:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Let me get this straight, you are trying to say that information un Muntuwandi's source shoulkd not be included because your source says it is unreliable? Is that the basic jist of this argument? -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 14:38, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Not exactly. XGustaX 16:55, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I have reviewed the sources. Here is what I think.
I've had another look at the Marks material. He is a professionally qualified writer,professor at the University of North Carolina, and there is nothing whatsoever wrong or misleading in what he has to say about genetics. According to Spencer Wells,
the M45 mutation occurred around 35,000 years ago. That's plenty of time for somebody to have found his way back across the Bering Strait and for him or his male line to have made it all the way to Europe. The M3 mutation occurred around 10,000 years ago. So it would not be surprising to find some individuals possessing that marker even in Iceland.
But the problem for "American Indian" markers is less intense than it is for almost any other group, i.e., if the lines are a little fuzzy with Native Americans they are much more fuzzy for groups that had historically known contacts, at least since Roman Empire times, all over Eurasia and Africa.
The reason that Marks was writing for the website where his essay was found is that he is trying to explain to people outside the Native American community the multiple reasons why some people are not credited with status as members of some tribe or other and/or why they are not regarded as Native Americans despite the genetic evidence of one or more markers. He clearly distinguishes between the genetic evidence, which is his area of expertise and which he is endeavoring to explain to people, and the other criteria for membership that people use.
What does all of this stuff have to say about race and genetics? Basically, it is a good object lesson on how mixed we all are. We are not like a steam table with seven or eight separate food containers. We are more like a stew pot in which different ingredients have been added along different spots on the rim of the pot. Salt added to the north end at the top doesn't take forever to reach the south end at the bottom. In between there would be a steady gradient were it not for the fact that there are convection currents involved. P0M 21:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
The dubious part of Marks article is when they try to poke holes in the Mitochondrial DNA testing. The whole concept of identifying admixture or tracing ancestry is based on identifying mutations that are found in one population and not in another. If all mutations were found to occur with equal frequency in all populations it would not be possible. But since Native Americans have been separated from Asia for a couple of thousand years, they have mutations that are unique to them. Scientists know this when testing for admixture. This is why page 546 (4 of 15) says:
Molecular Markers. The samples were screened for the following mtDNA haplogroups: A1, A2, B, C1, C2, D1, and D2 (native Americanspecific haplogroups); H, I, J, K, T, U, V, W, and European -specific haplogroups); and L1/L2 (African-specific haplogroups).
Even within a macro-haplogroup there are specific haplogroups that are localized and can be reliably used to determine admixture or ancestry. Muntuwandi 23:44, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
“ | Some of the haplotypes attributed to Native Americans are also found in people from other parts of the world. A, B, C, and D are found in North Asia, and X is found in southern Europe and Turkey. In fact, haplotype B, also called the “Asian 9 base pair deletion,” is found in some Japanese and almost all Samoans. Can a person who has haplotype B in her mtDNA claim to be Native American based on that information if almost all Samoans also have haplotype B? | ” |
People were asked to comment. here is my comment: As far as I can tell, this is the heart of the argument: Muntuwanda has articles that "published these facts" (19:50, 18 June 2007) and XGustaX has "proven that they are not reliable therefore I am removing it" (19:54, 18 June 2007). Most of the discussion is the same basic points, back and forth, and claims about which sources are superior. It seems to me that both editors think that there is something called "the facts" and that the purpose of this page is to figure out what they are so that they can be incorporated into the article. I suggest that, at least with this issue, the question of what are the facts is irrelevant. According to our NPOV policy it is not for us to decide what are the facts, what is the truth. It is for us to find out what are the major views, and provide an adequate account of the views. XGustavX comes close to admitting this when he writes of the reality of haplogroups, "No, of course not." but then s/he screws it up by writing "But For Native Americans they are as the Article explains that is why I removed only the Native American part." That one group of people (Native Americans) have a certain view (let's leave aside that there are many native American views) does not mean that other views e.g. those of molecular geneticists, or the US government, or whomever, gets removed. We represent multiple points of view. Muntuwandi writes, "After your article was published people continue to study mtDNA. the source i intend to add is from 2004, long after your critique. So it means your critique is outdated." which is just as silly as what XGustaX wrote - an article can be written one, two, or twenty years after another and that does not necessarily mean that the earlier article is "outdated." The earlier article expresses a point of view held by someone. If a later article shows that that person or that group has changed its view, then the earlier article is outdated. But if the later article represents a point of view held by someone else, then the earlier article is NOT outdated. We just have two different views. My advice is that the two of you should stop debating the truth and instead clearly identify the different points of view you have researched. Then you can spend time more productively ensuring that each point of view is represented accurately and clearly rather than a pointless debate over what views get included. But let's be clear: you are not including "the facts" or "the truth" but rather divverent views ov the facts, held by different people. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:31, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Muntuwandi, sometimes it seems to me that you change your argument. If your argument is that certain sources ought to be represented, e.g. articles you cited concerning mtDNA lineage, you know that I am sympathetic with your side. I agree with XGustaX that some Native Americans claim that "Genetic testing for at least for Native Americans is not reliable" but I strongly disagree that this is grounds for deleting the material you wish to include. Am I to understand that you DO accept that alternate views provided by XGustaX should be included too? Then I cannot fault you. However, there is a second issue which gets at the question of the relationship between the sources you cite concerning haplotypes and mtDNA lineages and the topic of this article, race and genetics - which gets to my attempt to include in the race article a section called "race as lineage." Alun was very critical of that and he and I had a very productive discussion on his talk page (now archived) but when he comes back from his Wikibreak I hope he and I will work together to improve the race article. The issue is, what exactly is the relevance of these mtDNA lineages for any discussion of race? I am not asking you for your opinion and I will not give my opinion. But the views of the authors of these articles and other molecular geneticists has to be accurate and clear. By the way, did you draw on Marks? i forget who brought him in, but he is definitely a reliable source. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:06, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Thank You. It was me who brought Marks in. It final seems we are reaching a consensus. Do not add chris into the equation as well as he was just a moderator, and had no interest in the subject. You do indeed keep changing your argument over and over again. Slrubenstein I am sorry if I screwed it up by saying Native American DNA testing only when in reality its genetic testing in general. XGustaX 17:34, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
There seems to be a strong consensus about this table so I am removing it from the article. YuZuu 14:28, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
no strong consensus. third parties reviewed the information and found it to be reliable Muntuwandi 14:40, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
There does seem to be a strong consensus, by XGustavX,201.235.38.117,P0M, and myself. If you do not like what is on the page simply because you do not like it, then tough. You seem to be the only one here against the information Muntuwandi. Everyone else agrees the information is reliable. YuZuu 14:43, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
The reasons have been stated to you over and over again, it appears and most people other then you and XGustavX have given their views. Please follow the consensus, on the talk page. Happy Wiking! YuZuu 23:54, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
TELL ME IF YOU NEED SOURCES,
Where do you take something like 45% of the Mtda AMERINDIAN chromosome!!!! IN ARGENTINIANS??? Thisis the most important genetic test in that country and shows that it's 80% European, and this is including immigrants and the entire population regerding their ethnic orgin.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/114025749/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
This just proves my article even more! Yes That means some that of the 19% of the total population have "Amerindian Markers", the Amerindian contribution ranges in those people from 1.5 to 84.5% in those people. Thank you for sharing this information. XGustaX 14:17, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
There seems to be a strong consensus about this table so I am removing it from the article.
YuZuu
14:28, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
First of all you need to understand that there are two methods of calculating admixture, one method is uniparental that is the mtdna or y-chromosomal tests. These tests do not measure admixture proportions of an individual, they simply indicate the presence of admixture and are used to measure the proportion of a population that is affected by admixture. They are also useful in studying sex-biased admixture
The second method is autosomal which measures the individual ancestry intermixture proportions. this study is obviously a lot more detailed and complex than uniparental studies. so by using autosomal admixture argentina is 80% european on average. but this does not mean that every argentinian is 80% european. No it is the average over the whole population. Some may be 100% European and others less than 80% european. In this study all 94 individuals had amerindian ancestry ranging from 1.5% to 84.5%. so in this study 100% of the individuals had some amerindian ancestry. This is even more than the estimates using uniparental admixture. This study does not contradict the uniparental studies. Furthermore this study was based on the Argentinian population in general and the uniparental study is based on those who self identify as caucasian. Muntuwandi 00:03, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
You argument doesn't make much sense for starters this used Autosomal testing was used in this test for the "Native American Markers" and indeed 80 precent were found to be of both lineages from Europe and 19 precent were found with these "Native American markers". Also it doesnt make any sense how a study with only Causaisans would be more accurate then one that does a survey of the whole population. XGustaX 00:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
"Some estimate that as much as 40% of the genome may contribute to intelligence[37]."
It is contradictory since 97% of the genome is junk DNA, therefore, it must be less than 3%.
I suggest removing that statement.
71.175.32.77 14:39, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I removed the paragraph: "In Argentina the process of Europeanization was most efficient since those who identify as white are 97% of the population. Some have therefore accused former Latin American governments of secretly promoting white supremacist policies. They cite the fact that many Nazi war criminals, such as Adolf Eichmann who lived in Argentina, were given safe havens in Latin America after the end of the world war 2."
Adolf Eichmann and Nazis had nothing to do with the general racial views of Argentinians. Talking about Nazis strays from the topic of this article.
Argentinians are generally of European descent because there the original amount of Native Americans was small and the climate was considered temperate enough for White people. If you wish to argue that Argentinian governments have been racist a more suitable foundation for that argument would be the Constitution of Argentina which includes Section 25 of Part 1: "The Argentinian Government shall foster European immigration".
I wrote this a while ago on the messy Race in the United States page (help requested if any of you are interested) but now am taking it out. I think it fits better here. Incorporate some/all if you wish: Calliopejen1 09:09, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
A recent American study indicates that "ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity—as opposed to current residence—is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population." [7]. Using 326 genetic markers, Tang et al. (2005) identified four genetic clusters among 3,636 individuals sampled from 15 locations in the United States. After recruiting people identifying as white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic, they were able to assign individuals to the "correct" groups, based on their DNA alone, for all but five individuals (an error rate of 0.14%).
The authors of this study also concluded that Hispanics' genes "generally represent a differential mixture of European, Native American, and African ancestry, with the proportionate mix typically depending on country of origin." The sample used in the study was composed of Mexican Americans, and was from a single location in Texas. [8]
While critics of the study acknowledge that biological genetic variation among humans exists, they "argue that the bulk of human variation is continuously distributed and, as a result, any categorization schema attempting to meaningfully partition that variation will necessarily create artificial truncations." [9] Because of this, they say, similar studies that have tried to allocate individuals into ancestry groups based on their DNA "have yielded varying results that are highly dependent on methodological design." [9]
i replaced the 2-20% figure, which came from the backintyme website. On that site, the author is not a geneticist but he cites the Shriver paper for the statement. I went back to the original shriver paper and what i added (0.7%, s.e.=0.9%) were the actual findings. The 1/3 have 2-20% statement is silly, because you could say 1/3 of Americans make between $60,000 and $1,000,000,000 per year, if you want to include Bill Gates in the mix. The current number is more informative.
I also deleted a bunch of unreferenced stuff that looked implausible. If anyone wants to find citations and readd it, have at it! Calliopejen1 10:40, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
It is not silly, I think you missed the point. The issue is what is the most black admixture that a white person can have and still look white. The study based on skin reflectance suggests that a white person can have up to 20% African admixture and still look white. Secondly the statistical analysis was done before watson and crick but it is an independent analysis using only statistics and is pretty much in agreement with shriver's study.
Muntuwandi 22:40, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I have made some changes regarding this content for the simple reason that any reading of the NY Times article in question does not support the claims made by this article. My biggest concern is the breach of Wikipedia guidelines regarding science and the popular press, we should avoid citing the popular press when we make scientific claims, but there were serious distortions even using the Times article as a source.
They report that with microcephalin, a new allele arose about 37,000 years ago, although it could have appeared as early as 60,000 or as late as 14,000 years ago. About 70 percent of people in most European and East Asian populations carry this allele of the gene, but it is much rarer in most sub-Saharan Africans.....With the other gene, ASPM, a new allele emerged 14,100 to 500 years ago, the researchers favoring a midway date of 5,800 years. The allele has attained a frequency of about 50 percent in populations of the Middle East and Europe, is less common in East Asia, and is found at low frequency in some sub-Saharan Africa peoples.
The article not only misreported the NY Times, it also selectively omitted certain statements such as this: "Even if the new alleles should be shown to improve brain function, that would not necessarily mean that the populations where they are common have any brain-related advantage over those where they are rare."
I have endevoured to correct this biased interpretation of a journalistic source. It appears that the data in question are not really relevant to this section of the article. I would suggest that these data do not belong in this article, they have little or no relevance to any concept of "race". In which "racial" scheme are "Eurasians" considered a "race"? If Eurasians have never been considered a "race", then how can the fact that they share a specific allele in common be relevant to any concept of "race"? Indeed how can any single genetic marker ever be considered a marker for "race"? These genes show the same pattern of distribution as many other genes, they appear to be distributed clinally, am I to infer that African people who happen to have the relevant copy of these genes are considered to be part of an "Eurasian race"? Obviously these genes are not "racial" genetic markers, for no such thing exists, in which case what is the point of mentioning them? Indeed, I don't understand what a section entitled "Modern civilisation and genetics" has to do with an article about "Race and genetics". The concept of "Modern civilisation and genetics" seems best debated with regard to the way genetics was misused by "modern civilisation" in the first half of the twentieth century in order to promote eugenic and racist policies in places like the USA and Germany. Jonathan Marks discusses this in detail in his book "What it means to be 98% chimpanzee", a discussion of genetics with regard to eugenics and racism would be much more apt in this section IMHO. Alun 16:13, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
When it is not possible to partition individuals into a priori samples (or when the basis for doing so is of uncertain validity), it is necessary to use an approach that clusters individuals without reference to sample information. We chose the most widely used clustering program (STRUCTURE) to represent this class of analyses. The authors (Pritchard et al. 2000; Falush et al. 2003) admit that the procedure to estimate the number of populations is ad hoc and recommend that it be used only as a guide, but these caveats are often ignored. Previous assessments of the performance of structure (Evanno et al. 2005) have focused on situations involving strong differentiation. In agreement with those results, we found that structure accurately identified the number of populations when Nm was 5 or lower, mutation was High, and full samples of loci and individuals were used, but performance deteriorated sharply under less ideal conditions (Fig. 7). The complete inability of structure to correctly estimate the true number of populations using Low mutation markers is somewhat surprising but in agreement with previous observation regarding the factors primarily responsible for statistical power to detect population differentiation.
I find it unfathomable that one of the leading Professors of Psychology in the race debate, and author of the groundbreaking book on the matter, ' Race, Evolution and Behavior', Professor Phillipe K. Rushton is not quoted anywhere on the pages on race. Of course, his conclusions are not politically correct so it's little wonder. His sources are entirely legitimate, his approach academic and considered and his education and expertise speak for themselves. He should be cited here and soon, particularly considering the one-sidedness of these articles. Anything that denies racial difference comes with no affidavit, everything that supports it has to be followed by lengthy (and often ineffectual) rebuttals (ref: the sporting differences section, which tries to suggest that lack of African American presence in baseball disproves the suggestion that African Americans have greater muscle mass to bone density ratio and thereby are overrepresented in competitive sports that REQUIRE THESE ATTRIBUTES). This article needs a lot of work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.160.96.237 ( talk) 00:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
All in all there seems to be little or no real anthropological or biological evidence that humans fragment into subspecies based on genetics. Many other organisms that have apparently divergent phenotypes are genetically homogeneous (for example domesticated dogs are very genetically homogeneous, having been domesticated by a few founder events only about 14,000 years ago, though different breeds are obviously phenotypically very diverged, and these breeds are on the whole only about 200 years of age, it shows the discrepancy between physical variation and genetic variation very nicely), on the other hand some populations have been identified as subspecies in the past but have been shown to be genetically very different, recently a new species of elephant was identified in Africa, though there were observable differences between African forest and savanah elephants they had always been classified as subspecies, genetic analysis recently found an FST of 94% between these populations and a new species of elephant was born, we now have Loxodonta africana and Loxodonta cyclotis. [20] The genetic differentiation between leopard species of Asia and Africa has been shown to be far greater than anything seen in humans, with an FST of 36% of variation between populations. Humans do not fragment into subspecies as some other populations of organisms do, and other organisms also appear not to fragment into subspecies based on genetic analysis, even though they had been classified into subspecies previously. On the other hand some populations of organisms are being shown to have a greater degree of genetic variation than previously thought and are starting to be recognised as subspecies. I think it is safe to say that the idea of human "races" being equivalent to subspecies (ie the existence of "biological race") is not accepted by either mainstream anthropology or biology.Members of a subspecies share a unique geographic range or habitat, a group of phylogenetically concordant phenotypic characters, and a unique natural history relative to other subdivisions of the species. Because they are below the species level, different subspecies are reproductively compatible. They will normally be allopatric and they will exhibit recognizable phylogenetic partitioning, because of the time-dependent accumulation of genetic difference in the absence of gene flow. Most subspecies will be monophyletic, however they may also derive from ancestral subspecies hybridization.
(1) That Rushton doesn't apply because he is not a geneticist, and that his work should appear in Race and Intelligence. Nonsense on two counts. First, if you actually care to read his work, you'll realise intelligence is only one of the many differences Rushton observes in racial trends. Many, in fact, most of his observations and statistical analysis point to differences that if nothing else, are related very closely to genetic differences and their expressions in phenotype. Read his R-K reproduction theories for one, as well as cranial, jawbone, bone-density differences etc. How could these possibly be more relevant to an Intelligence rather than Genetic article?
(2) This recurrent and ridiculous argument that because race requires some consideration in terms of definition, that it is somehow redundant as a means of division. Yes, there are elements of cross over and population shifts that muddy the waters in some areas of racial division. And, as per all bell-curves, there will be individuals who defy the norm. Does this mean we throw out the entire means of classification when so many clearly representative trends exist? Of course not. A difficulty in finding a 'dividing line' does not render redundant a general and relevant means of division. For example, in ethics we have difficulty finding a clear 'dividing line' for the point when abortion is morally acceptable, because there is no clear-cut point at which the foetus/child becomes immediately distinguishable. Does this mean we send all those who wear protection during intercourse to prison for murder? Or perhaps we should allow mothers to murder their 5 year old sons? Obviously without a dividing line without any ambiguity whatsoever, the entire means of classification must be redundant, right?
Alun can bury his/her head in the sand all day, and can do so with the best of intentions. Racial difference is a scientific reality. That doesn't make one race better or worse, it just shows that humanity, like all forms of life on earth, is subject to the laws of Darwinian evolution, and that human populations that remained ethnically isolated for thousands of generations did what all species will do over time: ADAPT TO THEIR ENVIRONMENT. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
58.160.96.237 (
talk)
07:43, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
biomedical
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).